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THE    INNER    LIFE 


THEOSOPHICAL    TALKS    AT    ADYAR 


(FIRST  SERIES) 


THE    INNER    LIFE 


C.  W.  LEADBEATER 


THE   THEOSOPHICAL   PRESS 

826  OAK  DALE  AVENUE, 

CHICAGO,  ILL. 

1922 


150465 


5  b  $ 


FOREWORD  TO  THE  INDIAN  EDITION 

Our  evening  "Talks"  at  the  Theosophical  Headquar- 
ters at  Adyar  have  become  quite  an  institution,  and  a 
very  considerable  amount  of  information,  due  to  new- 
research,  often  arising  from  some  question  put  by  a 
student,  is  given  in  this  friendly  and  intimate  circle. 
Our  good  Vice-President,  Sir  S.  Subramania  Iyer, 
found  so  much  help  and  illumination  from  these  talks, 
that  he  earnestly  wished  to  share  his  pleasure  with  his 
brethren  in  the  outer  world,  and  gave  a  sum  of  money 
to  help  in  their  publication.  I  cordially  endorse  his 
view  of  their  value,  and  commend  this  volume  and 
those  which  will  follow  it  to  the  earnest  study  of  all 
our  members.  A  second  series  is  ready  for  the  press, 
but  the  date  of  its  issue  will  depend  partly  on  the  re- 
ception given  to  the  present. 

ANNIE  BESANT 


INTRODUCTION 

I  wish  that  I  could  help  my  American  readers  to 
realise  the  conditions  under  which  this  book  has  been 
produced.  The  Theosophical  Society  as  a  whole  does 
not  by  any  means  sufficiently  understand  or  appreciate 
the  work  done  at  its  Headquarters,  and  although  for 
you  in  America  it  is  away  on  the  other  side  of  the  earth, 
I  should  like  to  help  you  to  see  it  as  it  is.  Readers  of 
the  "Messenger"  must  at  least  have  some  general  idea 
of  the  appearance  of  the  place,  and  must  know  some- 
thing of  the  life  which  is  lived  here — a  long  life,  a 
strenuous  life,  and  a  life  lived  under  very  peculiar  con- 
ditions. Nowhere  else  in  the  world  at  this  present  mo- 
ment is  there  such  a  centre  of  influence — a  centre  con- 
stantly visited  by  the  Great  Ones,  and  therefore  bathed 
in  their  wonderful  magnetism.  The  vibrations  here 
are  marvellously  stimulating,  and  all  of  us  who  live 
here  are  therefore  under  a  constant  strain  of  a  very 
peculiar  kind,  a  strain  which  brings  out  whatever  is 
in  us.  Strong  vibrations  from  other  planes  are  play- 
ing all  the  while  upon  our  various  vehicles,  and  those 
parts  of  us  which  can  in  any  sense  respond  to  them 
are  thereby  raised,  strengthened  and  purified.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  there  is  another  side  to  this. 
There  may  well  be  in  each  of  us  some  vibrations  the 
character  of  which  is  too  far  removed  from  the  level 
of  these  great  influences  to  fall  into  harmony  with 
them,  and  where  that  is  the  case  intensification  will 
still  take  place,  but  the  result  may  well  be  evil  rather 
than  good.    To  live  at  Adyar  is  the  most  glorious  of 


viii  THE  INNER  LIFE 

all  opportunities  for  those  who  are  able  to  take  advan- 
tage of  it,  but  its  effect  on  those  who  are  constitution- 
ally unable  to  harmonize  with  its  vibrations  may  be 
dangerous  rather  than  helpful.  If  a  student  can  bear 
it  he  may  advance  rapidly;  if  he  cannot  bear  it  he 
is  better  away. 

The  workers  here  live  mostly  in  the  great  central 
building,  within  the  immediate  aura  of  the  shrine  room 
and  the  President.  The  students  live  chiefly  half-a- 
mile  away  at  various  other  houses,  though  all  within 
the  large  estate  which  now  belongs  to  the  Society. 
Each  during  the  day  does  his  own  work  in  his  own 
way,  but  in  the  evening  we  all  gather  together  upon 
the  roof  of  the  central  building,  in  front  of  the  Presi- 
dent's rooms,  formerly  occupied  by  Madame  Blavatsky 
herself,  and  there,  under  the  marvellous  night  sky  of 
India,  so  infinitely  more  brilliant  than  anything  that 
we  know  in  what  are  miscalled  temperate  climes,  we 
sit  and  listen  to  her  teaching.  All  through  the  sum- 
mer of  last  year,  so  much  of  which  she  spent  in  a  tour 
through  the  United  States,  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  take 
charge  of  the  meetings  of  the  students  here.  In  the 
course  of  that  time  I  delivered  many  informal  little 
addresses  and  answered  hundreds  of  questions.  All 
that  I  said  was  taken  down  in  shorthand,  and  this  book 
is  the  result  of  those  notes.  In  a  number  of  cases  it 
happened  that  what  was  said  on  the  roof  at  the  meet- 
ings was  afterwards  expanded  into  a  little  article  for 
The  Theosophist  or  The  Adyar  Bulletin;  in  all  such 
cases  I  reprint  the  article  instead  of  the  stenographic 
report,  as  it  has  had  the  advantage  of  certain  correc- 
tions and  additions.  Necessarily  a  book  of  this  sort 
is  fragmentary  in  its  nature;  necessarily  also  it  con- 
tains a  certain  amount  of  repetition ;  though  this  latter 
has  been  excised  wherever  possible.    Many  of  the  sub- 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

jects  treated  have  also  been  dealt  with  in  my  earlier 
books,  but  what  is  written  here  represents  in  all  cases 
the  result  of  the  latest  discoveries  in  connection  with 
those  subjects.  The  subjects  have  been  classified  as 
far  as  possible,  and  this  volume  represents  the  first 
series,  containing  five  sections.  The  second  volume, 
containing  the  nine  remaining  sections,  is  now  in  the 
printer's  hands.  A  list  of  the  subjects  of  which  it  will 
treat  will  be  found  at  the  end  of  this  volume. 

C.  W.  LEADBEATER 
Adyar,  July,  1910. 


CONTENTS 


3$\vBt  &tttum 

The  Great  Ones  and  the  Way  to  Them 

PAGE 

The  Great  Ones 3 

The  Work  of  the  Christ 19 

The  Work  of  the  Masters 22 

Masters  and  Pupils 26 

The  Path  of  Progress 46 

The  Ancient  Mysteries 73 


fcpnmft  £>*rttott 


Religion 

The  Logos 93 

Buddhism      97 

Christianity 114 

Sin 120 

The  Pope      121 

Ceremonial 123 

Prayer 124 

The  Devil 126 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Hinduism       129 

Castes       133 

Spiritualism 134 

Symbology 137 

Fire      142 


QHjirfc  fbtttwn 

The  Theosophical  Attitude 

Common-sense       147 

Brotherhood 147 

Helping  the  World 157 

Criticism 159 

Prejudice 162 

Curiosity 167 

Know  Thyself 169 

Asceticism 176 

Small  Worries 181 

Killing  out  Desire 189 

The  Centre  of  my  Circle 191 

Our  Duty  to  Animals 196 

Sympathy 199 

Our  Attitude  Towards  Children  .    .    .    .    .  201 

The  Fear  of  Death 201 

Co-operation 203 

A  Day  of  Life 204 

Meditation 206 


CONTENTS  xiii 

Ifamrtlf  #*rtum 

The  Higher  Planes 

PAGE 

Nirvana 219 

The  Triple  Spirit 222 

Buddhic  Consciousness 226 

Experience 227 

The  Spheres 227 


3Ftftfi  &*rtUm 

The  Ego  and  his  Vehicles 

The  Ego  and  the  Personality 241 

Counterparts 253 

Colours  in  the  Astral  Body 259 

The  Causal  Body 260 

The  Deske-Elemental 260 

Lost  Souls 265 

The  Focus  of  Consciousness 285 

Force-Centres 286 

The  Serpent-Fire 298 

Obsession  and  Insanity 309 

Sleep 315 

Somnambulism 318 

The  Physical  Body 319 

Tobacco  and  Alcohol 321 


3?irat  Section 


5typ  <&xmt  ©ttPB 

and 

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THE    INNER    LIFE 

FIRST  SECTION 

The  Great  Ones 

1TUDENTS  OF  OCCULTISM— even  those 
who  have  been  students  for  many  years — 
sometimes  seem  to  fail  to  realise  the  Mas- 
ters as  They  truly  are.  I  have  often  found 
people  thinking  of  Them  as  some  kind  of  angels  or 
devas,  or,  at  any  rate,  as  so  far  removed  from  us  by 
Their  greatness  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  us  to 
derive  much  help  from  Them.  Thier  greatness  is  in- 
disputable, and  from  that  point  of  view  the  gulf  be- 
tween Them  and  ourselves  may  well  seem  incalculable 
in  its  extent ;  and  yet  from  another  point  of  view  They 
are  very  close  to  us,  so  that  Their  sympathy  and  help 
are  very  near  and  very  real.  That  our  thought  on  the 
subject  may  be  clear,  let  us  first  of  all  try  to  define 
exactly  what  we  mean  by  the  term  "Master." 

We  mean  by  it  always  one  who  is  a  member  of  the 
Great  White  Brotherhood — a  member  at  such  a  level 
that  He  is  able  to  take  pupils.  Now  the  Great  White 
Brotherhood  is  an  organization  unlike  any  other  in  the 
world,  and  for  that  reason  it  has  often  been  misunder- 
stood. It  has  sometimes  been  described  as  the  Hima- 
layan or  the  Tibetan  Brotherhood,  and  the  idea  has 
been  conveyed  of  a  body  of  Indian  ascetics  residing 

3 


4  THE  INNER  LIFE 

together  in  a  monastery  in  some  inaccessible  mountain 
fastness.  Perhaps  this  has  risen  largely  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  facts  that  the  two  Brothers  princi- 
pally concerned  in  the  foundation  and  work  of  the 
Theosophical  Society  happen  at  the  moment  to  be  liv- 
ing in  Tibet,  and  to  be  wearing  Indian  bodies.  To 
comprehend  the  facts  of  the  case  it  may  be  better  to 
approach  its  consideration  from  another  point  of  view. 

Most  of  our  students  are  familiar  with  the  thought 
of  the  four  stages  of  the  Path  of  Holiness,  and  are 
aware  that  a  man  who  has  passed  through  them  and 
attained  to  the  level  of  the  Asekha  has  achieved  the 
task  set  before  humanity  during  this  chain-period,  and 
is  consequently  free  from  the  necessity  of  reincarna- 
tion on  this  planet  or  on  any  other.  Before  him  then 
open  seven  ways  among  which  he  must  choose.  Most 
of  them  take  him  away  from  this  earth  into  wider 
spheres  of  activity,  probably  connected  with  the  solar 
system  as  a  whole,  so  that  the  great  majority  of  those 
members  of  our  humanity  who  had  already  reached 
this  goal  have  passed  entirely  out  of  our  ken. 

The  limited  number  who  are  still  working  directly 
for  us  may  be  divided  into  two  classes — those  who  re- 
tain physical  bodies,  and  those  who  do  not.  The  latter 
are  frequently  spoken  of  under  the  name  of  Nirmana- 
kayas.  They  hold  themselves  suspended  as  it  were  be- 
tween this  world  and  nirvana,  and  They  devote  the 
whole  of  Their  time  and  energy  to  the  generation  of 
spiritual  force  for  the  benefit  of  mankind.  This  force 
They  pour  into  what  may  be  described  as  a  reservoir, 
upon  which  the  Masters  and  their  pupils  can  draw 
for  the  assistance  of  Their  work  with  humanity.  The 
Nirmanakaya,  because  He  remains  to  this  extent  in 
touch  with  the  lower  planes,  has  been  called  'a  candi- 
date for  woe/  but  that  is  misleading.    What  is  meant 


THE  GREAT  ONES  5 

is  that  He  has  not  the  joy  of  the  higher  work,  or  of 
the  nirvanic  levels.  He  has  chosen  to  remain  upon 
lower  planes  in  order  to  help  those  who  still  suffer. 
It  is  quite  true  that  to  come  back  from  the  higher  life 
into  this  world  is  like  going  down  from  the  fresh  air 
and  glorious  sunlight  into  a  dark  and  evil-smelling 
dungeon ;  but  the  man  who  does  this  to  help  some  one 
out  of  that  dungeon  is  not  miserable  and  wretched 
while  there,  but  full  of  the  joy  of  helping,  notwith- 
standing the  greatness  of  the  contrast  and  the  terrible 
feeling  of  bondage  and  compression.  Indeed,  a  man 
who  refused  such  an  opportunity  of  giving  aid  when  it 
came  to  him  would  certainly  feel  far  more  woe  after- 
wards, in  the  shape  of  remorse.  When  we  have  once 
really  seen  the  spiritual  misery  of  the  world,  and  the 
condition  of  those  who  need  such  help,  we  can  never 
again  be  careless  or  indifferent  about  it,  as  are  those 
who  have  not  seen. 

Fortunately  those  of  us  who  have  seen  and  realized 
this  have  ever  at  our  command  a  means  whereby  we 
can  quite  really  and  definitely  help.  Tiny  though  our 
efforts  may  be  as  compared  with  the  splendid  outpour- 
ing of  force  of  the  Nirmanakaya,  we  also  can  add 
our  little  drops  to  the  great  store  of  force  in  that  reser- 
voir. Every  outpouring  of  affection  or  devotion  pro- 
duces a  double  result — one  upon  the  being  to  whom  it 
is  sent,  and  another  upon  ourselves,  who  sent  it  forth. 
But  if  the  devotion  or  affection  be  utterly  without  the 
slightest  thought  of  self,  it  brings  in  its  train  a  third 
result  also.  Ordinary  affection  or  devotion,  even  of  a 
high  kind,  moves  in  a  closed  curve,  however  large  that 
curve  may  be,  and  the  result  of  it  comes  back  upon  the 
sender.  But  the  devotion  or  affection  of  the  truly  un- 
selfish man  moves  in  an  open  curve,  and  though  some 
of  its  affects  inevitably  react  upon   the  sender,  the 


6  THE  INNER  LIFE 

grandest  and  noblest  part  of  its  force  ascends  to  the 
Logos  Himself,  and  the  response,  the  magnificent  re- 
sponse of  benediction  which  instantly  pours  forth  from 
Him,  falls  into  that  reservoir  for  the  helping  of  man- 
kind. So  that  it  is  within  the  power  of  every  one  of 
us,  even  the  weakest  and  the  poorest,  to  help  the  world 
in  this  most  beautiful  manner.  It  is  this  adding  to  the 
reservoir  of  spiritual  force  which  is  really  the  truth 
that  lies  at  the  back  of  the  Catholic  idea  of  works  of 
supererogation. 

The  still  more  limited  number  of  adepts  who  retain 
physical  bodies  remain  in  even  closer  touch  with  us,  in 
order  to  fill  certain  offices,  and  to  do  certain  work  neces- 
sary for  our  evolution ;  and  it  is  to  the  latter  that  the 
names  of  the  Great  White  Brotherhood  and  the  Occult 
Hierarchy  have  sometimes  been  given.  They  are,  then, 
a  very  small  number  of  highly  advanced  men  belong- 
ing not  to  any  one  nation,  but  to  the  world  as  a  whole. 
On  the  physical  plane  They  do  not  live  together,  though 
They  are  of  course  in  continual  communication  on 
higher  planes.  Since  They  are  beyond  the  necessity  of 
rebirth,  when  one  body  wears  out  They  can  choose  an- 
other wherever  it  may  be  most  convenient  for  the  work 
They  wish  to  do,  so  that  we  need  not  attach  any  special 
importance  to  the  nationality  of  the  bodies  which  They 
happen  to  be  wearing  at  any  particular  time.  Just 
now,  several  of  those  bodies  are  Indian,  one  is  Tibetan, 
one  is  Chinese,  two  at  least  are  English,  one  is  Italian, 
one  Hungarian,  and  one  Syrian,  while  one  was  born 
in  the  island  of  Cyprus.  As  I  have  said,  the  nation- 
ality of  these  bodies  is  not  a  matter  of  importance,  but 
I  mention  these  in  order  to  show  that  it  would  be  a 
mistake  to  think  of  the  ruling  Hierarchy  as  belonging 
exclusively  to  one  race. 

Reverence  restrains  us  from  saying  much  of  the 


THE  GREAT  ONES  7 

great  Head  of  this  Hierarchy,  in  Whose  hands  is  the 
fate  of  the  continents,  in  Whose  name  all  initiations 
are  given.  He  is  one  of  the  very  few  now  remaining 
upon  earth  of  the  Lords  of  the  Flame,  the  Children 
of  the  Fire-mist,  the  great  beings  who  came  down  from 
Venus  nearly  eighteen  million  years  ago  to  help  and 
to  lead  the  evolution  of  humanity  on  our  chain.  These 
Great  Ones  did  not  take  bodies  from  our  then  entirely 
undeveloped  humanity,  but  made  for  themselves  bodies 
in  appearance  resembling  ours  by  the  force  of  Their 
will,  a  kind  of  permanent  materialization.  At  that 
period,  and  for  long  after  it,  no  members  of  our  human- 
ity were  sufficiently  developed  to  fill  any  of  the  higher 
offices  in  this  Hierarchy,  and  consequently  we  needed 
and  received  this  help  from  without.  Gradually,  as 
humanity  has  evolved,  it  has  become  more  and  more 
able  to  provide  for  itself,  and  the  great  Lords  of  the 
Flame  have  been  set  free  to  go  to  the  help  of  yet  other 
evolutions.  But  one  of  Them  still  holds  this,  the  high- 
est office  of  all — the  position  of  the  King  Who  guides 
and  controls  all  evolution  taking  place  upon  this  planet 
— not  only  that  of  humanity  and  of  the  animal,  vege- 
table, mineral  and  elemental  kingdoms  below  it,  but  also 
of  the  great  non-human  kingdoms  of  the  nature-spirits 
and  the  devas,  some  of  which  rise  so  far  above  it. 

Under  Him  are  various  Heads  of  Departments,  the 
broad  outlines  of  whose  work  are  more  within  our  com- 
prehension than  His.  Though  the  details  are  far  be- 
yond us,  we  can  form  some  slight  idea  of  what  must 
be  the  manifold  responsibilities  and  activities  of  the 
Manu  of  a  Root-race ;  and  perhaps  we  can  to  some  ex- 
tent image  to  ourselves  the  duties  of  Him  who  is  Min- 
ister of  Religion  in  this  world-kingdom — who  sends 
forth  religion  after  religion,  suiting  each  to  the  needs 
of  a  particular  type  of  people  and  to  the  period  of  the 


8  THE  INNER  LIFE 

world's  history  in  which  it  is  launched,  sometimes  de- 
puting one  of  His  subordinates  to  found  it,  sometimes 
even  incarnating  Himself  for  that  purpose,  as  He  may- 
see  fit.  This  Minister  of  Religion  is  often  called  in  the 
East  the  Bodhisattva — one  who  is  about  to  become  a 
Buddha.  The  previous  holder  of  that  high  office  was 
He  whom  we  call  the  Lord  Gautama  Buddha.  The 
attainment  of  Buddhahood  is  not  simply  the  gaining 
of  enlightenment ;  it  is  also  the  taking  of  a  great  and 
definite  initiation,  and  the  man  who  has  taken  that  step 
cannot  again  incarnate  upon  earth,  but  hands  over  His 
work  to  His  successor,  and  usually  passes  away  alto- 
gether from  any  connection  with  earth. 

The  Lord  Gautama,  however,  still  remains  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  within  touch  of  the  world,  in  order  that 
He  may  still  be  able  to  help  it.  Once  in  each  year  He 
still  shows  Himself  to  the  brotherhood  of  adepts,  and 
pours  down  His  blessing  upon  them,  to  be  passed 
through  them  to  the  world  at  large ;  and  He  may  still 
be  reached  in  certain  ways  by  those  who  know  how. 
Mrs.  Besant  has  told  us,  in  some  of  her  recent  writings, 
how  He  incarnated  over  and  over  again  as  the  great 
teacher  of  the  earlier  sub-races  of  the  Aryan  race,  how 
he  was  Hermes — the  founder  of  the  Egyptian  Mys- 
teries— also  the  first  and  greatest  Zoroaster,  the  orig- 
inal founder  of  the  worship  of  the  sun  and  fire,  and 
again  He  was  Orpheus,  the  founder  of  the  Greek  Mys- 
teries. Those  mentioned  of  course  were  not  His  only 
births,  for  in  the  course  of  our  researches  into  the  past 
we  have  seen  Him  as  founder  of  other  religions  than 
these. 

The  statement  made  in  some  of  the  earlier  Theo- 
sophical  works  that  He  was  reborn  as  Shankaracharya 
is  an  error,  for  from  an  occult  point  of  view  the  two 
great  teachers  were  on  entirely  different  lines.    There 


THE  GREAT  ONES  9 

was,  however,  a  certain  reason  at  the  back  of  the  state- 
ment in  the  fact  that  some  of  the  vehicles  prepared 
by  one  of  them  were  also  utilized  by  the  other,  as  Mad- 
ame Blavatsky  has  explained  in  the  third  volume  of 
The  Secret  Doctrine. 

The  deep  reverence  and  the  strong  affection  felt  for 
the  Lord  Gautama  all  over  the  East  are  due  to  two 
facts.  One  of  these  is  that  He  was  the  first  of  our 
humanity  to  attain  to  the  stupendous  height  of  Buddha- 
hood,  and  so  He  may  be  very  truly  described  as  the 
first-fruits  and  the  leader  of  our  race.  (All  previous 
Buddhas  had  belonged  to  other  humanities,  which  had 
matured  upon  earlier  chains.)  The  second  fact  is  that 
for  the  sake  of  hastening  the  progress  of  humanity, 
He  took  upon  Himself  certain  additional  labours  of  the 
most  stupendous  character,  the  nature  of  which,  it  is 
impossible  to  comprehend.  It  is  stated  that  when  the 
time  came  at  which  it  was  expected  that  humanity 
would  be  able  to  provide  for  itself  some  one  who  was 
ready  to  fill  this  important  office,  no  one  could  be  found 
who  was  fully  capable  of  doing  so.  But  few  of  our 
earthly  race  had  then  reached  the  higher  stages  of 
adeptship,  and  the  foremost  of  these  were  two  friends 
and  brothers  whose  development  was  equal.  These 
two  were  the  mighty  Egos  now  known  to  us  as  the 
Lord  Gautama  and  the  Lord  Maitreya,  and  in  His 
great  love  for  mankind  the  former  at  once  volunteered 
to  make  the  tremendous  additional  exertion  necessary 
to  qualify  Him  to  do  the  work  required,  while  His 
friend  and  brother  decided  to  follow  Him  as  the  next 
holder  of  that  office  thousands  of  years  later. 

In  those  far-off  times  it  was  the  Lord  Gautama  who 
ruled  the  world  of  religion  and  education ;  but  now  He 
has  yielded  that  high  office  to  the  Lord  Maitreya,  whom 
western  people  call  the  Christ — who  took  the  body  of 


10  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  disciple  Jesus  during  the  last  three  years  of  its  life 
on  the  physical  plane ;  and  those  who  know  tell  us  that 
it  will  not  be  long  before  He  descends  among  us  once 
again,  to  found  another  faith.  Anyone  whose  mind 
is  broad  enough  to  grasp  this  magnificent  conception 
of  the  splendid  reality  of  things  will  see  instantly  how 
worse  than  futile  it  is  to  set  up  in  one's  mind  one  re- 
ligion as  in  opposition  to  another,  to  try  to  convert  any 
person  from  one  to  another,  or  to  compare  depreciat- 
ingly the  founder  of  one  with  the  founder  of  another. 
In  the  last  case  indeed  it  is  especially  ridiculous,  be- 
cause the  two  founders  are  either  two  pupils  of  the 
same  school,  or  two  incarnations  of  the  same  person, 
and  so  are  entirely  in  accord  as  to  principles,  though 
They  may  for  the  time  be  putting  forward  different 
aspects  of  the  truth  to  suit  the  needs  of  those  to  whom 
They  speak.  The  teaching  is  always  fundamentally 
the  same,  though  its  presentation  may  vary  widely. 
The  Lord  Maitreya  had  taken  various  births  before 
He  came  into  the  office  which  He  now  holds,  but  even 
in  these  earlier  days  He  seems  always  to  have  been 
a  teacher  or  high-priest. 

It  is  now  generally  known  that  the  two  Masters  who 
have  been  most  intimately  concerned  with  the  founda- 
tion and  the  work  of  the  Theosophical  Society  have 
taken  respectively  the  offices  of  temporal  and  spiritual 
leader  of  the  new  sixth  root-race,  which  is  to  come  in- 
to existence  in  seven  hundred  years'  time.  The  Manu, 
or  temporal  leader,  is  practically  an  autocratic  mon- 
arch who  arranges  everything  connected  with  the  phys- 
ical-plane life  of  the  new  race,  and  endeavours  in  every 
way  to  make  it  as  perfect  an  expression  as  possible 
of  the  idea  which  the  Logos  has  set  before  Him  for 
realization.  The  spiritual  teacher  will  be  in  charge  of 
all  the  various  aspects  of  religion  in  the  new  race,  and 


THE  GREAT  ONES  11 

also  of  the  education  of  its  children.  It  is  clear  that 
one  of  the  main  objects  of  the  foundation  of  the  Theo- 
sophical  Society  was  that  these  two  Masters  might 
gather  round  Them  a  number  of  men  who  would  be  in- 
telligent and  willing  co-operators  in  this  mighty  work. 
Round  Them  will  be  grouped  others  who  are  now  Their 
pupils,  but  will  by  that  time  have  attained  the  level  of 
adeptship. 

We  may  then  set  before  ourselves  as  a  goal  the  privi- 
lege of  being  chosen  to  serve  Them  in  this  wonderful 
work  for  the  world  which  lies  before  Them.  There 
will  be  ample  opportunity  for  the  display  of  all  possible 
varieties  of  talent,  for  the  work  will  be  of  the  most 
varied  character.  Some  of  us  will  no  doubt  be  at- 
tracted to  one  side  of  it  and  some  to  the  other,  largely 
according  to  the  predominance  of  our  affection  for  one 
or  other  of  its  great  Leaders.  It  has  often  been  said 
that  the  characteristic  of  one  is  power,  and  of  the  other 
love  and  compassion,  and  this  is  perfectly  true,  though, 
if  it  is  not  rightly  understood,  it  may  very  easily  prove 
misleading.  One  of  the  Masters  concerned  has  been  a 
ruler  in  many  incarnations,  and  was  so  even  in  the 
earlier  part  of  this  one,  and  unquestionably  royal 
power  shows  forth  in  His  every  gesture  and  in  the  very 
look  of  His  eyes,  just  as  surely  as  the  face  of  His 
brother  adept  beams  ever  with  overflowing  love  and 
compassion.  They  are  of  different  rays  or  types,  having 
risen  to  Their  present  level  along  different  lines,  and 
this  fact  cannot  but  show  itself ;  yet  we  should  mistake 
sadly  if  we  thought  of  the  first  as  in  any  degree  less 
loving  and  compassionate  than  His  brother,  or  of  the 
second  as  lacking  anything  of  the  power  possessed  by 
the  first.  Other  Masters  also  will  be  engaged  in  this 
work,  and  it  may  well  be  that  some  of  us  may  have 
made  our  link  through  one  of  Them. 


12  THE  INNER  LIFE 

It  is  probable  that  even  the  Masters  who  are  by  name 
best  known  to  you  are  not  so  real,  not  so  clear,  not  so 
well-denned  to  you  as  They  are  to  those  of  us  who  have 
had  the  privilege  of  meeting  Them  face  to  face  and  see- 
ing Them  constantly  in  the  course  of  our  work.  Yet 
you  should  endeavour  by  reading  and  thinking  of  Them 
to  gain  this  realization,  so  that  the  Masters  shall  be- 
come to  you  not  vague  ideals  but  living  men — men 
exactly  as  we  are,  though  so  enormously  more  advanced 
in  every  respect.  They  are  men  most  emphatically, 
but  men  without  failings,  and  so  to  us  They  seem  like 
gods  on  account  of  the  power,  love  and  compassion 
radiating  from  Them.  It  is  most  significant  that,  in 
spite  of  the  awe  necessarily  produced  by  the  sense  of 
this  tremendous  power,  in  Their  presence  one  never 
feels  in  the  least  afraid  or  embarrassed,  but  always 
uplifted. 

The  man  who  stands  before  one  of  Them  cannot  but 
feel  the  deepest  humility,  because  of  the  greatness  of 
the  contrast  between  himself  and  the  Master.  Yet 
with  all  this  humility  he  yet  feels  a  firm  confidence  in 
himself,  for  since  the  Master,  who  is  also  man,  has 
achieved,  that  achievement  is  clearly  possible  even  for 
him.  In  His  presence  everything  seems  possible  and 
even  easy,  and  one  looks  back  with  wonder  on  the 
troubles  of  yesterday,  unable  now  to  comprehend  why 
they  should  have  caused  agitation  or  dismay.  Now 
at  least,  the  man  feels,  there  can  never  again  be  trouble, 
since  he  has  seen  the  right  proportion  of  things.  Now 
he  will  never  again  forget  that,  however  dark  the 
clouds  may  be,  the  sun  is  ever  shining  behind  them. 
The  vibrations  of  the  Masters  are  so  strong  that  only 
those  qualities  in  you  which  harmonize  with  them  are 
called  out,  so  that  you  will  feel  the  uttermost  confi- 
dence and  love,  and  the  desire  to  be  always  in  His 


THE  GREAT  ONES  13 

presence.  It  is  not  that  you  forget  that  you  have  un- 
desirable qualities  in  you,  but  you  feel  that  now  you 
can  conquer  them,  and  you  do  not  in  the  least  mind 
His  knowing  all  about  them,  because  you  are  so  certain 
that  He  understands  perfectly,  and  to  understand  all 
is  to  pardon  all. 

It  may  perhaps  help  us  to  realize  the  human  side 
of  our  Masters  if  we  remember  that  many  of  Them 
in  comparatively  recent  times  have  been  known  as  his- 
torical characters.  The  Master  K.  H.,  for  example, 
appeared  in  Europe  as  the  philosopher  Pythagoras. 
Before  that  He  was  the  Egyptian  priest  Sarthon,  and 
on  yet  another  occasion  chief-priest  of  a  temple  at 
Agade,  in  Asia  Minor,  where  He  was  killed  in  a  gen- 
eral massacre  of  the  inhabitants  by  a  host  of  invad- 
ing barbarians  who  swooped  down  upon  them  from  the 
hills.  On  that  occasion  He  took  immediately  the  body 
of  a  Greek  fisherman,  which  had  been  drowned  in  his 
attempt  to  escape,  and  in  that  body  the  Master  jour- 
neyed on  to  Persia,  where  he  rendered  great  assistance 
to  the  last  of  the  Zoroasters  in  the  founding  of  the  mod- 
ern form  of  the  Mazdayaznian  religion.  Later  He  was 
the  flamen  of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter  in  Rome,  and  later 
still  Nagarjuna,  the  great  Buddhist  teacher.  We  have 
found  Him  many  times  in  our  researches  into  the  past 
lives  of  some  members  of  our  group,  but  almost  always 
as  a  priest  or  teacher. 

Again,  in  these  researches  into  the  remote  past  we 
have  frequently  found  the  disciple  Jesus,  who  in  Pales- 
tine had  the  privilege  of  yielding  up  His  body  to  the 
Christ.  As  a  result  of  that  act  He  received  the  incar- 
nation of  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  and  in  the  eleventh 
century  He  appeared  in  India  as  the  teacher  Ramanu- 
jacharya,  who  revived  the  devotional  element  in  Hin- 
duism, and  raised  it  to  so  high  a  level. 


14  THE  INNER  LIFE 

No  doubt  some  of  you  have  heard  a  good  deal  about 
other  Masters  besides  the  two  who  principally  take 
charge  of  Theosophical  work.  Another  Master,  for 
example,  dictated  for  us  Light  on  the  Path  and  The 
Idyll  of  the  White  Lotus,  while  yet  another  has  taken 
charge  of  a  great  deal  of  the  work  in  Europe,  and  has 
written  for  us  some  of  the  most  splendid  works  in  the 
whole  realm  of  literary  activity.  Then  the  one  who 
was  once  the  disciple  Jesus  stands  ready  especially  to 
guide  the  various  activities  of  the  Christian  Churches. 
Yet  another  looks  especially  after  the  work  here  in 
India. 

Thus  it  may  be  seen  that  the  evolution  of  the  world 
is  by  no  means  left  to  itself,  to  get  along  as  best  it  may, 
as  people  so  often  rashly  suppose;  on  the  contrary,  it 
is  being  directed.  For  this  Hierarchy  of  adepts  is  actu- 
ally managing  it,  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to  manage  it 
while  leaving  its  inhabitants  their  own  free-will.  The 
members  of  the  Brotherhood,  through  Their  agents, 
are  constantly  trying  to  work  with  the  important 
people  of  the  world,  putting  advice  and  suggestions 
into  their  minds,  endeavouring  to  move  them  onwards 
towards  the  great  future  of  Universal  Brotherhood 
when  war  shall  have  disappeared.  But  we  must  re- 
member that  the  karma  of  all  the  people  concerned 
has  to  be  considered  and  respected.  It  would  no  doubt 
be  easy  to  force  the  world  along  at  a  far  more  rapid 
rate,  but  that  would  not  be  for  the  real  advantage  of 
the  people  concerned.  The  Master  K.  H.  once  said  in  a 
letter  which  I  received  from  Him :  "Of  course  I  could 
easily  tell  you  exactly  what  to  do,  and  of  course  you 
would  do  it,  but  then  the  karma  of  the  act  would  be 
mine  and  not  yours,  and  you  would  gain  only  the  karma 
of  prompt  obedience." 

Men  have  to  learn  to  be  not  merely  intelligent  serv- 


THE  GREAT  ONES  15 

ants ;  they  have  to  learn  to  be  co-workers,  because  they 
themselves  will  have  the  same  work  to  do  some  day, 
and  if  they  are  to  be  fit  for  greater  responsibilities 
in  the  future  they  must  be  willing  to  take  up  the 
smaller  responsibilities  now.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  a 
really  great  opportunity  or  responsibility  of  world- 
wide importance  comes  to  one  of  us,  but  that  may  per- 
haps be  once  in  many  hundreds  of  lives.  When  it  comes 
we  shall  take  it  or  miss  it,  according  as  we  have  or 
have  not  been  in  the  habit  of  taking  the  smaller  oppor- 
tunities of  daily  life,  so  that  we  have  got  into  the  habit 
of  doing  the  right  thing,  and  shall  do  it  automatically 
at  the  critical  moment.  Our  opportunities  of  doing 
good  or  harm  are  usually  but  small  as  regards  the 
world  as  a  whole ;  but  when  we  have  learnt  invariably 
and  automatically  to  choose  the  right  in  these  smaller 
matters,  the  Great  Brotherhood  will  feel  it  safe  to  trust 
us  in  larger  matters. 

It  is  indeed  well  that  we  should  try  to  understand 
these  Great  Ones,  not  as  a  mere  matter  of  curiosity 
and  interest,  but  in  order  that  we  may  realise  Them 
as  They  are,  and  comprehend  that  They  are  men  just 
as  we  are,  varying  among  Themselves  just  as  we  vary, 
although  at  so  much  higher  a  level.  Wisdom,  power 
and  love  are  present  in  all  of  Them  equally,  yet  They 
are  by  no  means  all  alike.  They  are  individuals  just 
as  we  are.  They  are  at  the  top  of  the  ladder  of  human- 
ity, but  let  us  not  forget  that  we  are  somewhere  on  its 
lower  rungs,  and  that  one  day  we  also  shall  reach  Their 
level  and  stand  where  They  stand. 

One  important  fact  about  Them  is  Their  all-round 
development.  If  we  examine  ourselves  we  shall  be  sure 
to  find  that  we  are  to  some  extent  disproportionate 
in  our  development — one-sided  in  certain  respects. 
Some  of  us  are  full  of  scientific  faculty  and  intellectual 


16  THE  INNER  LIFE 

development,  but  sadly  lacking  in  devotion  and  com- 
passion; others  are  full  of  whole-souled  devotion,  but 
defective  on  the  intellectual  side.  A  Master  is  perfect 
along  both  these  lines,  as  may  easily  be  seen  when  we 
think  of  the  splendid  intellect  of  Pythagoras  along  with 
the  love  and  compassion  of  the  Master  K.  H. 

We  must  not  misunderstand  Their  wonderful  knowl- 
edge. In  order  to  attain  the  level  of  adeptship  They 
must  have  cast  off  among  others  the  fetter  of  avidya 
or  ignorance,  and  it  is  often  said  that  to  cast  off  ignor- 
ance one  must  attain  all-knowledge.  Yet  we  know 
from  personal  acquaintance  with  Them  that  this  is 
not  so  in  the  mere  literal  sense ;  for  example,  there  are 
Masters  who  do  not  know  all  languages,  others  who  are 
not  artists  and  musicians,  and  so  on.  I  think  that  what 
is  really  meant  by  casting  off  the  fetter  of  ignorance 
is  the  acquisition  of  a  power  by  which  They  can  at  any 
moment  command  any  knowledge  upon  any  subject 
which  They  happen  to  require.  They  certainly  have 
not  all  facts  stored  within  Their  physical  brains,  but 
equally  certainly  They  can  very  quickly  obtain  any 
knowledge  of  which  They  have  need.  As  to  the  ques- 
tion of  languages,  for  example,  if  a  Master  wishes  to 
write  a  letter  in  a  language  which  He  does  not  know, 
He  very  frequently  employs  the  brain  of  a  pupil  who 
is  acquainted  with  that  language,  throwing  the  ideas 
into  that  pupil's  brain,  and  then  employing  the  words 
in  which  He  sees  them  clothe  themselves.  If  a  man 
speaks  to  Them  in  a  language  which  They  do  not  under- 
stand, They  can  instantly  grasp  on  the  mental  plane 
the  thought  that  lies  behind  the  incomprehensible 
words. 

It  is  often  asked  whether  an  ordinary  man  who  met 
a  Master  on  the  physical  plane  would  instantly  recog- 
nize Him  as  such.    I  do  not  see  any  reason  why  he 


THE  GREAT  ONES  17 

should.  He  would  certainly  find  the  Adept  impressive, 
noble,  dignified,  holy  and  serene.  He  could  hardly  fail 
to  recognize  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  remark- 
able man;  but  to  know  certainly  that  that  man  was 
an  adept  it  would  be  necessary  to  see  His  causal  body, 
which  of  course  the  ordinary  man  could  not  do.  In 
that  causal  body  the  development  would  show  by  its 
greatly  increased  size,  and  by  a  special  arrangement 
of  the  colours,  which  would  differ  for  each  of  the  seven 
great  types.  But  all  this  would  be  quite  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  ordinary  man  whom  we  are  postulating. 

Adepts  have  no  definite  external  peculiarities  by 
which  They  may  be  recognized,  though  there  is  a  great 
calmness  and  benevolence  common  to  Them  all;  Their 
faces  are  stamped  always  with  a  joyous  serenity,  the 
peace  which  passeth  all  understanding.  Most  of  Them 
are  distinctly  handsome  men,  because  Their  physical 
bodies  are  perfect,  for  They  live  in  an  absolutely  hy- 
gienic way,  and  above  all  They  never  worry  about  any- 
thing. In  the  case  of  most  of  us  there  is  still  a  great 
deal  of  karma  of  various  kinds  to  be  worked  out  and 
among  other  things  this  modifies  the  appearance  of 
our  physical  bodies.  In  Their  case  all  karma  is  long 
ago  exhausted,  and  consequently  the  physical  body  is 
a  perfect  expression  on  the  physical  plane  of  the 
Augoeides  or  glorified  body  of  the  Ego.  Not  only 
therefore  is  the  body  of  a  Master  usually  splendidly 
handsome,  but  also  any  new  body  that  He  may  take  in 
a  subsequent  incarnation  will  be  an  almost  exact  re- 
production of  the  old  one,  because  there  is  nothing  to 
modify  it. 

Another  remarkable  fact  is  that  They  are  able  to 
preserve  Their  physical  bodies  very  much  longer  than 
we  can — owing  no  doubt  to  the  perfect  health  and  ab- 
sence of  worry  which  we  have  already  mentioned.    Al- 


18  THE  INNER  LIFE 

most  all  of  the  Masters  whom  we  know  appear  as  men 
in  the  prime  of  life,  yet  in  many  cases  there  is  testi- 
mony to  prove  that  Their  physical  bodies  must  have 
long  passed  the  ordinary  age  of  man.  I  have  heard 
Madame  Blavatsky  say  that  her  Master  as  He  appears 
now  does  not  look  a  day  older  than  when  she  first  saw 
Him  in  her  childhood  sixty  years  before.  In  one  case 
only,  that  of  a  Master  who  has  recently  attained  adept- 
ship  in  the  body  which  He  is  still  wearing,  there  is  a 
certain  ruggedness  in  the  face,  which  is  doubtless  the 
result  of  some  remainder  of  past  karma  brought  over 
into  this  incarnation,  but  I  think  we  may  feel  sure 
that  when  He  chooses  to  take  another  body  that  char- 
acteristic will  not  persist. 

Probably  They  are  more  silent  than  most  men ;  busy 
people  have  not  much  time  for  casual  talk,  and  They 
are  out  of  all  proportion  the  busiest  people  in  the 
world.  Their  pupil  Madame  Blavatsky  was  the  most 
brilliant  conversationalist  that  I  have  ever  met,  but 
she  never  made  talk  for  the  sake  of  making  it.  So 
with  Them;  a  Master  never  speaks  without  a  definite 
object  in  view,  and  His  object  is  always  to  encourage, 
to  help  or  to  warn.  He  speaks  always  gently  and  with 
the  greatest  kindness,  though  He  often  betrays  a  very 
keen  sense  of  humour;  yet  the  humour  itself  is  al- 
ways of  the  kindly  order,  and  is  used  never  to  wound, 
but  always  to  lighten  the  troubles  of  the  way,  or  to 
soften  some  necessary  rebuke.  Certainly  a  man  who 
has  no  sense  of  humour  would  not  be  likely  to  make 
much  progress  in  occult  matters. 

The  number  of  adepts  who  retain  physical  bodies 
in  order  to  help  the  evolution  of  the  world  is  but  small 
— perhaps  some  fifty  or  sixty  in  all.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  great  majority  of  these  do  not 
take  pupils,  as  They  are  engaged  in  quite  other  work. 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  CHRIST  19 

Madame  Blavatsky  employed  the  term  adept  very 
loosely,  for  in  one  place  she  actually  speaks  of  adepts 
who  have  been  initiated,  and  adepts  who  have  not  been 
initiated.  In  all  later  writings  we  have  reserved  the 
word  "initiate"  for  those  who  have  passed  at  least 
the  first  of  the  four  great  stages  upon  the  Path  of  Holi- 
ness, and  the  word  adept  we  have  restricted  to  those 
who  have  attained  the  Asekha  level,  and  so  have  fin- 
ished the  evolution  required  of  them  in  this  chain  of 
worlds.  The  consciousness  of  the  Asekha  rests  nor- 
mally upon  the  nirvanic  or  atmic  plane  while  his  phy- 
sical body  is  awake.  But  out  of  the  number  who  have 
already  attained  adeptship  only  the  very  small  pro- 
portion above-mentioned  retain  physical  bodies,  and 
remain  in  touch  with  the  earth  in  order  to  help  it ; 
and  out  of  this  a  still  smaller  proportion  are  willing 
under  certain  conditions  to  accept  men  as  pupils  or 
apprentices ;  and  it  is  to  these  last  (the  smallest  num- 
ber) only  that  we  give  the  name  of  Masters.  Yet  few 
though  They  be  Their  office  is  of  incalculable  impor- 
tance, since  without  Their  aid  it  would  be  impossible 
for  man  to  enter  the  portals  of  initiation. 


The  Work  of  the  Christ 

You  ask  about  the  Great  One  whom  we  call  the 
Christ,  the  Lord  Maitreya,  and  about  His  work  in  the 
past  and  in  the  future.  The  subject  is  a  wide  one — 
one  also  about  which  it  is  somewhat  difficult  for  us  to 
speak  with  freedom,  on  account  of  the  restrictions  with 
which  we  are  hedged  round.  Possibly  the  suggestion 
may  be  of  use  to  you  that  there  is  what  we  may  call 


20  THE  INNER  LIFE 

a  department  of  the  inner  government  of  the  world 
which  is  devoted  to  religious  instruction — the  found- 
ing and  inspiring  of  religions,  and  so  on.  It  is  the 
Christ  who  is  in  charge  of  that  department;  some- 
times He  Himself  appears  on  earth  to  found  a  great 
religion  and  sometimes  He  entrusts  such  work  to  one 
of  His  more  advanced  assistants.  We  must  regard 
Him  as  exercising  a  kind  of  steady  pressure  from  be- 
hind all  the  time,  so  that  the  power  employed  will  flow 
as  though  automatically  into  every  channel  anywhere 
and  of  any  sort  which  is  open  to  its  passage;  so  that 
He  is  working  simultaneously  through  every  religion, 
and  utilizing  all  that  is  good  in  the  way  of  devotion 
and  self-sacrifice  in  each. 

The  fact  that  these  religions  may  be  wasting  their 
strength  in  abusing  one  another  upon  the  physical 
plane  is  of  course  lamentable,  but  it  does  not  make 
much  difference  to  the  fact  that  whatever  is  good  in 
each  of  them  is  being  simultaneously  utilized  from 
behind  by  the  same  great  Power.  This  is  true  of  course 
of  all  movements  in  the  world ;  every  ounce  of  the 
good  in  them  is  being  used  as  a  channel,  while  the  evil 
in  them  is  in  each  case  just  so  much  regrettable  waste 
of  force  which  might  have  been  utilized  if  the  people 
had  been  more  sensible.  The  section  in  The  Secret 
Doctrine  entitled  The  Mystery  of  Buddha  gives  a  good 
deal  of  information  as  to  the  relations  between  the 
Heads  of  this  department  of  Religion,  and  it  may  give 
some  useful  hints  as  to  the  Christ  also.  This  is  a  sub- 
ject of  paramount  interest  to  the  members  of  our  So- 
ciety, since  one  of  our  Masters  has  a  specially  close 
relation  with  that  department. 

As  to  the  approaching  advent  of  the  Christ  and  the 
work  which  He  has  to  do,  you  cannot  do  better  than 
read  Mrs.  Besant's  book  on  The  Changing  World.    The 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  CHRIST  21 

time  of  His  advent  is  not  far  distant,  and  the  very 
body  which  He  will  take  is  even  already  born  among  us. 

All  this  was  decided  many  thousands  of  years  ago — 
some  of  it  decided  apparently  in  minute  details,  though 
it  would  seem  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  flexibility 
with  regard  to  other  points.  The  utter  certainty  with 
which  these  Great  Ones  lay  Their  plans  many  thou- 
sands of  years  ahead  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  fea- 
tures of  this  stupendous  work  that  They  do.  Sometimes 
it  is  open  to  those  of  us  who  have  been  able  to  develop 
the  faculties  of  the  higher  planes  to  be  allowed  a 
glimpse  of  Their  mighty  schemes,  to  witness  the  lifting 
of  a  tiny  corner  of  the  veil  which  shrouds  the  future. 
Sometimes  also  we  have  glimpsed  Their  plans  in  an- 
other way,  for  in  looking  back  into  the  records  of  the 
distant  past  we  have  found  Them  making  prophecies, 
the  fulfilment  of  which  is  even  now  passing  before  our 
eyes. 

I  know  of  nothing  more  stirring,  more  absorbingly 
interesting,  than  such  a  glimpse.  The  splendour,  the 
colossal  magnitude,  of  Their  plans  takes  away  one's 
breath,  yet  even  more  impressive  is  the  calm  dignity, 
the  utter  certainty,  of  it  all.  Not  individuals  only,  but 
even  nations  are  the  pieces  in  this  game;  but  neither 
nation  nor  individual  is  compelled  to  play  any  given 
part.  The  opportunity  to  play  that  part  is  given  to  it 
or  to  him ;  if  he  or  it  will  not  take  it  there  is  invariably 
an  under-study  ready  to  step  in  and  fill  the  gap.  But, 
whoever  may  be  the  instrument,  this  one  thing  at  least 
is  utterly  certain,  that  the  intended  end  will  be 
achieved ;  through  whose  agency  this  will  be  done  mat- 
ters very  much  to  the  agent  but  nothing  at  all  to  the 
total  progress  of  the  world.  Nineteen  hundred  years 
ago  Appollonius  of  Tyana  was  sent  out  by  the  Brother- 
hood upon  a  mission,  one  feature  of  which  was  that  he 


22  THE  INNER  LIFE 

was  to  found,  in  various  countries,  certain  magnetic 
centres.  Objects  of  the  nature  of  talismans  were  given 
to  him,  which  he  was  to  bury  at  these  chosen  spots,  in 
order  that  the  force  which  they  radiated  might  prepare 
these  places  to  be  the  centres  of  great  events  in  the 
future.  Some  of  those  centres  have  already  been  util- 
ized, but  some  have  not,  and  all  these  latter  are  to  be 
employed  in  the  immediate  future  in  connection  with 
the  work  of  the  coming  Christ.  So  that  much  of  the 
detail  of  His  work  was  already  definitely  planned 
nearly  two  thousand  years  ago,  and  arrangements  even 
on  the  physical  plane  were  being  made  to  prepare  for 
it.  When  once  we  realize  this  utter  certainty,  doubt 
and  hesitation,  anxiety  and  worry,  all  fade  away  and 
we  gain  a  perfect  peace  and  content,  and  the  most  abso- 
lute confidence  in  the  Powers  who  are  governing  the 
world. 


The  Work  of  the  Masters 

The  work  of  the  Masters  on  Their  own  planes  is  not 
easy  for  us  to  comprehend,  though  we  can  readily  see 
that  Their  activity  must  be  tremendous.  The  number 
of  adepts  still  retaining  physical  bodies  is  but  small, 
and  yet  in  Their  hands  is  the  care  of  all  the  evolutions 
which  are  taking  place  on  this  globe.  As  far  as  human- 
ity is  concerned  They  seem  to  divide  the  world  into 
parishes,  but  Their  parishes  are  continents,  and  an 
adept  is  appointed  to  look  after  each.  The  Theosoph- 
ical  Society  appears  to  be  rather  of  the  nature  of  a  mis- 
sion sent  out  from  Headquarters,  so  that  those  who 
take  part  in  its  activities  are  working  not  for  any  par- 
ticular parish  or  any  particular  form  of  religion,  but 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  MASTERS  23 

for  humanity  as  a  whole ;  and  it  is  upon  humanity  as  a 
whole,  or  at  least  upon  humanity  in  the  mass,  that  the 
Masters  chiefly  act.  They  have  a  department  which 
devotes  itself  to  endeavouring  to  influence  in  the  right 
direction  the  important  people  of  the  world — to  affect 
kings  and  statesmen  in  the  direction  of  peace,  to  im- 
press more  liberal  ideas  upon  great  preachers  and 
teachers,  to  uplift  the  conceptions  of  artists,  so  that 
through  them  the  whole  world  may  be  made  a  little 
happier  and  a  little  better. 

But  the  working  of  such  departments  as  these  is 
mainly  entrusted  to  Their  pupils,  They  themselves 
dealing  rather  with  the  egos  in  their  causal  bodies; 
They  devote  themselves  to  pouring  spiritual  influence 
upon  them — raying  out  upon  them  as  the  sunlight  radi- 
ates upon  the  flowers,  and  thereby  evoking  from  them 
all  that  is  noblest  and  best  in  them,  and  so  promoting 
their  growth.  Many  people  are  sometimes  conscious 
of  helpful  influences  of  this  description,  but  are  quite 
unable  to  trace  them  to  their  source.  The  causal  body 
of  the  average  man  has  as  yet  almost  no  consciousness 
of  anything  external  to  itself  on  its  own  plane.  It  is 
very  much  in  the  condition  of  the  chicken  within  the 
egg,  which  is  entirely  unconscious  of  the  source  of  the 
heat  which  nevertheless  stimulates  its  growth.  When 
any  person  reaches  the  stage  where  he  breaks  through 
his  shell,  and  becomes  capable  of  some  sort  of  response, 
the  whole  process  takes  on  a  different  form,  and  is 
enormously  quickened.  Even  the  group-souls  of  ani- 
mals on  the  lower  part  of  the  mental  plane  are  greatly 
affected  and  assisted  by  such  influence,  for  like  sun- 
light the  force  floods  the  entire  plane  and  affects  to 
some  extent  everything  which  is  within  its  radius.  In 
pouring  out  this  force  the  Masters  frequently  take 
advantage  of  special  occasions  and  of  places  where 


24  THE  INNER  LIFE 

there  is  some  strong  magnetic  centre.  Where  some 
holy  man  has  lived  and  died,  or  where  some  relics  of 
such  a  person  create  a  suitable  atmosphere,  They  take 
advantage  of  such  conditions  and  cause  Their  own 
force  to  radiate  along  the  channels  which  are  already 
prepared.  When  some  vast  assemblage  of  pilgrims 
comes  together  in  a  receptive  attitude,  again  They  take 
advantage  of  the  occasion  by  pouring  Their  forces  out 
upon  the  people  through  the  channels  by  means  of 
which  they  have  been  taught  to  expect  help  and 
blessing. 

It  is  owing  to  assistance  of  this  nature  given  to  us 
from  above  that  humanity  has  progressed  even  to  its 
present  position.  We  are  still  in  the  fourth  round, 
which  should  naturally  be  devoted  to  the  development 
of  desire  and  emotion,  and  yet  we  are  already  engaged 
in  the  unfolding  of  the  intellect,  which  is  to  be  the  spe- 
cial characteristic  of  the  fifth  round.  That  this  is  so 
is  due  to  the  immense  stimulus  given  to  our  evolution 
by  the  descent  of  the  Lords  of  the  Flame  from  Venus, 
and  by  the  work  of  the  adepts  who  have  preserved  for 
us  that  influence  and  steadily  sacrificed  Themselves  in 
order  that  we  might  make  the  better  progress. 

Those  who  understand  anything  of  this  work,  and 
most  especially  those  of  us  who  have  been  privileged  to 
see  the  Masters  doing  it,  would  never  for  a  moment 
think  of  interrupting  Them  in  such  altruistic  labour 
as  this  by  propounding  any  personal  requests.  The 
vast  importance  of  the  work  which  They  are  doing, 
and  the  enormous  amount  of  it,  make  it  obviously  im- 
possible that  They  should  take  up  personal  work  with 
individuals.  In  the  cases  where  such  work  has  to  be 
done  it  is  always  delegated  to  pupils  or  performed  by 
means  of  elementals  and  nature-spirits.  Therefore  it 
becomes  emphatically  the  duty  of  the  student  to  fit  him- 


THE  WORK  OF  THE  MASTERS  25 

self  to  do  some  of  this  lower  work,  for  the  very  good 
reason  that  if  he  does  not  do  so,  the  work  will  for  the 
present  be  left  undone,  since  it  would  be  obviously 
impossible  for  the  Masters  to  turn  aside  from  Their  far 
greater  work  for  the  whole  world  to  attend  to  individ- 
ual cases.  The  work  of  the  invisible  helpers  on  the 
astral  plane  would  simply  not  be  done  unless  there 
were  pupils  at  the  stage  where  that  is  the  best  work 
that  they  can  do ;  for  so  soon  as  they  pass  beyond  that 
stage  and  can  do  higher  work,  the  higher  work  will 
certainly  be  given  to  them. 

People  sometimes  ask  why  the  Masters  so  often 
work  through  imperfect  instruments;  the  answer  is 
obviously  because  They  have  not  time  to  do  the  work 
themselves,  and  They  must  therefore  employ  such  in- 
struments as  They  have,  or  the  work  will  not  be  done 
at  all.  Take  for  example  the  writing  of  books  for  the 
helping  of  humanity.  It  is  obvious  that  the  Masters 
could  do  this  very  far  better  than  any  of  Their  pupils 
can,  and  by  doing  it  They  could  entirely  avoid  any 
possibility  of  erroneous  or  imperfect  statements.  But 
They  have  absolutely  no  time  to  devote  to  such  work, 
and  therefore  if  it  were  not  done  by  pupils  it  would 
remain  undone.  Besides,  if  the  Masters  did  it  They 
would  take  away  the  opportunity  of  making  good 
karma  from  those  who  can  do  it — certainly  not  as  well 
as  They,  but  yet  after  all  well  enough  for  the  use  of 
those  who  know  so  very  much  less. 

We  must  remember  that  every  Master  has  at  His 
command  only  a  certain  amount  of  force  which,  enor- 
mous as  it  seems  to  us,  is  still  a  limited  quantity,  and  it 
is  His  duty  to  employ  this  force  to  the  best  possible 
advantage  for  the  helping  of  humanity.  Therefore  it 
would,  if  we  may  say  so  without  irreverence,  be  abso- 
lutely wrong  for  Him  to  waste  that  force  upon  any- 


26  THE  INNER  LIFE 

thing  lower  than  the  very  highest  that  it  can  reach, 
or  to  spend  upon  individual  cases,  however  deserving, 
that  which  can  be  so  much  better  employed  for  the  wel- 
fare of  all. 


Masters  and  Pupils 

It  has  already  been  said  that  out  of  the  compara- 
tively small  number  of  adepts  who  retain  Their  phys- 
ical bodies  and  fill  the  offices  connected  with  the  admin- 
istration of  the  world  under  the  Great  Hierarchy,  there 
is  a  still  smaller  number  who  accept  pupils,  and  to 
whom  therefore  we  give  the  name  of  Masters.  Let  us 
see  then  what  it  means  to  be  a  pupil  of  one  of  these 
Masters,  what  is  expected  of  one  who  aspires  to  this 
position  and  what  is  the  work  which  he  has  to  do. 

First  let  us  have  it  clearly  in  our  minds  that  the 
Masters  have  absolutely  dedicated  themselves  to  the 
service  of  humanity,  and  that  They  are  utterly  absorbed 
in  the  work  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  every  other  con- 
sideration. In  speaking  to  you  on  this  subject  before, 
I  have  mentioned  that  a  Master  has  only  a  certain  defi- 
nite amount  of  force  to  expend,  and  that  though  the 
amount  of  that  force  seems  to  us  almost  incalculable, 
He  is  nevertheless  exceedingly  careful  to  use  every 
ounce  of  it  to  the  best  possible  advantage.  Obviously 
to  take  in  hand  and  instruct  a  pupil  will  make  some 
demand  upon  His  time  and  upon  this  store  of  energy, 
and  since  He  regards  everything  from  the  standpoint 
of  its  use  in  regard  to  the  promotion  of  evolution  He 
will  not  expend  this  time  and  energy  upon  any  man 
unless  He  can  see  that  it  is  a  good  investment. 

He  will  take  a  man  as  a  pupil,  or  perhaps  we  should 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  27 

rather  say  as  an  apprentice,  when  He  sees  that  the 
amount  of  time  and  strength  spent  in  training  him  will 
produce  more  result  eventually  than  any  other  way  of 
expending  the  same  amount — but  not  otherwise.  For 
example,  a  man  might  have  many  qualifications  which 
would  make  him  useful  as  an  assistant,  but  at  the  same 
time  some  one  great  fault  which  would  be  a  constant 
obstacle  in  his  way,  which  would  nullify  much  of  the 
good  that  he  might  otherwise  do.  No  Master  would 
accept  such  a  man  as  a  pupil ;  but  he  might  say  to  him : 
"Go  to  work  and  conquer  that  special  fault  of  yours, 
and  when  you  have  succeeded  I  will  take  you  as  my 
assistant,  and  will  train  you  further." 

So  many  of  our  earnest  students  are  full  of  the  most 
benevolent  and  altruistic  feeling,  and,  knowing  them- 
selves to  be  in  this  way  very  different  from  the  ma- 
jority of  mankind,  they  sometimes  say  to  themselves, 
"I  am  so  deeply  anxious  to  work  for  humanity;  why 
will  not  the  Master  take  me  in  hand  and  train  me?" 

Let  us  face  the  facts  boldly.  The  Master  will  not 
train  you  because  you  are  still  full  of  all  sorts  of  minor 
imperfections.  It  is  quite  true,  as  you  no  doubt  feel 
within  yourselves,  that  your  benevolence,  your  kind- 
liness, your  earnest  wish  to  be  helpful,  are  far  greater 
things  on  the  credit  side  of  the  account  than  are  all 
these  small  faults  on  the  debit  side.  But  try  to  realize 
that  there  are  thousands  of  people  in  the  world  who  are 
benevolent  and  well-meaning,  and  that  you  differ  from 
them  only  in  the  fact  that  you  happen  to  have  a  little 
more  knowledge,  and  so  you  are  able  to  direct  your 
benevolence  into  more  definitely  useful  channels  than 
those  others.  If  these  were  all  the  qualifications  re- 
quired for  discipleship,  each  Master  might  have  thou- 
sands of  pupils,  and  His  whole  time  would  be  taken 
up  in  endeavouring  to  bring  into  shape  those  few  thou- 


28  THE  INNER  LIFE 

sands  of  people,  with  all  their  petty  little  faults  on  the 
astral  and  physical  planes,  and  in  the  meantime  the 
Master's  splendid  work  with  the  egos  on  the  higher 
levels  would  have  to  be  entirely  neglected. 

First  of  all  then,  to  be  a  pupil  of  a  Master  means  that 
one  must  look  upon  life  as  the  Master  looks  upon  it, 
solely  from  the  point  of  view  of  what  is  best  for  the 
progress  of  the  world.  The  pupil  must  be  prepared  ab- 
solutely to  forget  himself,  to  sink  his  personality  en- 
tirely, and  he  must  understand  that  this  is  not  a  mere 
poetical  figure  or  a  fashion  of  speech,  but  that  it  means 
just  exactly  what  it  says — that  he  must  have  no  per- 
sonal desires  whatsoever,  and  must  be  willing  to  order 
the  whole  of  his  life  according  to  the  work  that  he  has 
to  do.  How  many  of  us  are  there  who  are  whole- 
heartedly willing  to  take  even  this  first  step  towards 
accepted  discipleship? 

Think  what  it  means  to  become  a  disciple.  When 
any  man  offers  himself  for  such  a  position  the  Master 
will  at  once  say  whether  or  not  He  considers  him  fit  to 
enter  upon  the  stage  of  the  probationary  pupil.  If  the 
candidate  appears  to  be  reasonably  near  the  possession 
of  the  necessary  qualifications  the  Master  may  take  him 
upon  probation,  which  means  that  he  will  remain  for  a 
period  of  some  years  under  very  close  observation. 
Seven  years  is  the  average  time  of  this  probation, 
but  it  may  be  indefinitely  lengthened  if  the  candidate 
should  prove  unsatisfactory,  or  on  the  other  hand  it 
may  be  much  shortened  if  it  is  seen  that  he  has  really 
taken  himself  in  hand.  I  have  known  it  to  be  extended 
to  thirty  years ;  I  have  known  it  to  be  reduced  to  five 
years,  and  even  to  three,  and  in  one  quite  exceptional 
case  it  was  only  five  months.  During  this  period  of 
probation  the  pupil  is  not  in  any  sense  in  any  kind  of 
direct  communication  with  the  Master ;  he  is  little  likely 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  29 

to  hear  or  to  see  anything  of  Him.  Nor  as  a  general 
rule  are  any  special  trials  or  difficulties  put  in  his  way; 
he  is  simply  carefully  watched  in  his  attitude  towards 
all  the  little  daily  troubles  of  life.  For  convenience  of 
observation  the  Master  makes  what  is  called  a  "living 
image"  of  each  such  probationary  pupil — that  is  to  say, 
an  exact  duplicate  of  the  man's  astral  and  mental 
bodies.  This  image  He  keeps  in  a  place  where  He  can 
easily  reach  it,  and  He  places  it  in  magnetic  rapport 
with  the  man  himself,  so  that  every  modification  of 
thought  or  of  feeling  in  the  man's  own  vehicles  is  faith- 
fully reproduced  in  the  image.  These  images  are  ex- 
amined daily  by  the  Master,  who  in  this  way  obtains 
with  the  least  possible  trouble  a  perfectly  accurate 
record  of  his  prospective  pupil's  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, and  from  this  He  is  able  to  decide  when  He  can 
take  him  into  the  far  closer  relationship  of  the  second 
stage — that  of  the  accepted  pupil. 

Remember  that  the  Master  is  a  channel  for  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  forces  of  the  Logos,  and  not  indeed  a 
mere  unconscious  channel  but  a  keenly  intelligent  co- 
operator;  and  He  is  this  because  He  is  himself  con- 
sciously a  part  of  the  Logos.  Just  in  the  same  way  at 
a  lower  level  the  accepted  pupil  is  a  channel  of  the 
forces  of  the  Master,  but  he,  too,  must  be  not  an  uncon- 
scious channel  but  an  intelligent  co-operator,  and  in 
order  to  be  this  he  must  also  become  virtually  part  of 
the  consciousness  of  the  Master. 

An  accepted  pupil  is  taken  into  his  Master's  con- 
sciousness to  so  great  an  extent  that  whatever  he  sees 
or  hears  is  within  the  knowledge  of  his  Master — not 
that  the  Master  necessarily  sees  or  hears  it  at  the  same 
moment  (though  that  often  happens)  but  that  it  lies 
within  the  Master's  memory  exactly  as  it  does  within 
the  memory  of  the  pupil.    Whatever  the  pupil  feels  or 


30  THE  INNER  LIFE 

thinks  is  within  the  astral  and  mental  bodies  of  his 
Master.  When  we  realize  all  that  this  means,  we  see 
very  clearly  why  it  would  be  utterly  impossible  for  the 
Master  to  accept  any  pupil  until  the  pupil's  thoughts 
and  feelings  were  such  as  the  Master  would  wish  to 
harbour  within  himself. 

It  unfortunately  sometimes  happens  that  there  comes 
into  the  mind  of  the  pupil  some  thought  which  is  not 
fit  to  be  harboured  by  the  Master,  and  as  soon  as  the 
Master  feels  that,  He  at  once  erects  a  barrier  and  shuts 
off  from  himself  that  vibration,  but  to  do  this  diverts 
His  attention  for  a  moment  from  His  other  work,  and 
takes  a  certain  amount  of  energy.  Once  more  we  see 
clearly  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  a  Master  to  take 
into  such  a  relation  with  himself  one  who  often  in- 
dulged in  thoughts  unfit  for  the  Master's  mind ;  to  have 
to  be  continually  or  even  frequently  turned  aside  from 
His  work  in  order  to  shut  off  undesirable  thoughts  or 
feelings  would  clearly  be  a  quite  intolerable  tax  upon 
the  Master's  time  and  strength. 

It  is  not  because  of  any  lack  of  compassion  or  pa- 
tience that  a  Master  could  not  take  such  a  man ;  it  is 
simply  that  it  would  not  be  a  good  use  either  of  His 
time  or  His  energy,  and  to  make  the  best  possible  use 
of  both  of  them  is  His  simple  duty.  If  a  man  feels  him- 
self worthy  to  be  accepted  as  a  pupil,  and  wonders  why 
this  privilege  has  not  already  been  extended  to  him,  let 
him  watch  himself  closely  for  even  a  single  day,  and 
ask  himself  whether  during  that  day  there  has  been  in 
him  any  single  thought  or  feeling  which  would  have 
been  unworthy  of  the  Master.  Remember  that  not  only 
definitely  evil  or  unkind  thoughts  are  unworthy  of 
Him,  but  also  trifling  thoughts,  critical  thoughts,  irri- 
tated thoughts — above  all,  thoughts  of  self.  Who  of  us 
is  sufficient  for  these  things? 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  31 

The  effect  which  the  Master  seeks  to  produce  by  this 
wonderfully  close  association  is  the  harmonizing  and 
attuning  of  the  pupil's  vehicles — the  same  result  which 
an  Indian  teacher  tries  to  gain  by  keeping  his  disciples 
always  in  the  neighborhood  physically.  Whatever  may 
be  the  special  kind  of  exercises  of  the  special  course  of 
study  prescribed,  in  all  cases  the  principal  effect  upon 
the  pupil  is  that  produced  not  by  either  exercises  or 
study,  but  by  being  constantly  in  the  presence  of  the 
teacher.  The  various  vehicles  of  the  pupil  are  vibrat- 
ing at  their  accustomed  rates — probably  each  of  them 
at  various  rates,  due  to  the  constant  presence  of  pass- 
ing emotions  and  wandering  thoughts  of  all  kinds.  The 
first  and  most  difficult  task  of  the  pupil  is  to  reduce  all 
this  chaos  to  order — to  eliminate  the  host  of  minor 
interests,  and  control  the  wandering  thoughts,  and  this 
must  be  achieved  by  a  steady  pressure  of  the  will  exer- 
cised upon  all  his  vehicles  through  a  long  period  of 
years. 

While  he  still  lives  in  the  world  the  difficulty  of  this 
undertaking  is  multiplied  a  hundredfold  by  the  cease- 
less pressure  of  disturbing  waves  of  thought  and  emo- 
tion, which  give  him  no  moment  of  rest,  no  oppor- 
tunity to  collect  his  forces  in  order  to  make  a  real 
effort.  This  is  why  in  India  the  man  who  wishes  to 
live  the  higher  life  retires  to  the  jungle — why,  in  all 
countries  and  in  all  ages,  there  have  been  men  willing 
to  adopt  the  contemplative  life  of  the  hermit.  The 
hermit  at  least  has  breathing-space,  has  rest  from  the 
endless  conflict,  so  that  he  can  find  time  to  think  co- 
herently. He  has  little  to  hinder  him  in  his  struggle, 
and  the  calm  influences  of  nature  are  even  to  a  certain 
extent  helpful. 

But  the  man  who  lives  perpetually  in  the  presence 
of  one  already  upon  the  Path  has  a  still  greater  advan- 


32  THE  INNER  LIFE 

tage.  Such  a  teacher  has  by  the  hypothesis  already 
calmed  his  vehicles  and  accustomed  them  to  vibrate  at 
a  few  carefully  selected  rates  instead  of  in  a  hundred 
promiscuous  frenzies.  These  few  rates  of  vibration 
are  very  strong  and  steady,  and  day  and  night,  whether 
he  is  sleeping  or  waking,  they  are  playing  unceasingly 
upon  the  vehicles  of  the  pupil,  and  gradually  raising 
him  to  his  teacher's  key.  Nothing  but  time  and  close 
association  will  produce  this  effect;  and  even  then  not 
with  every  one,  but  only  with  those  capable  of  being 
attuned.  Many  teachers  require  to  see  a  reasonable 
proportion  of  this  result  before  they  will  impart  their 
special  methods  of  occult  development ;  in  other  words, 
before  teaching  a  pupil  something  which  may  easily 
do  him  much  harm  if  wrongfully  used,  they  wish  to  be 
certain  by  ocular  demonstration  that  he  is  a  man  of 
the  type  to  which  this  instruction  is  appropriate,  and 
is  sufficiently  amenable  to  their  influence  to  be  held 
in  the  right  way  by  it  when  the  strain  comes.  A  thou- 
sand times  greater  are  the  advantages  gained  by  those 
whom  the  Master  selects — who  thus  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  such  close  and  intimate  contact  with  Him. 

This  then  is  what  is  meant  by  being  an  accepted 
pupil  of  the  Master — that  the  man  becomes  a  kind  of 
outpost  of  that  Master's  consciousness,  so  that  the 
strength  of  the  Great  Ones  may  be  poured  out  through 
him,  and  the  world  may  be  definitely  the  better  for  his 
presence  in  it.  The  pupil  is  so  closely  in  touch  with  the 
Master's  thought  that  he  can  at  any  time  see  what  that 
thought  is  upon  any  given  subject,  and  in  that  way  he 
is  often  saved  from  error.  The  Master  can  at  any 
moment  send  a  thought  through  that  pupil  either  in 
the  form  of  a  suggestion  or  a  message.  If,  for  example, 
the  pupil  is  writing  a  letter  or  giving  a  lecture,  the  Mas- 
ter is  subconsciously  aware  of  that  fact,  and  may  at 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  33 

any  moment  throw  into  the  mind  of  the  pupil  a  sen- 
tence to  be  included  in  that  letter  or  a  useful  illustra- 
tion for  that  lecture.  In  earlier  stages  the  pupil  is 
often  unconscious  of  this,  and  supposes  these  ideas  to 
have  arisen  spontaneously  in  his  own  mind,  but  he  very 
soon  learns  to  recognize  the  thought  of  the  Master. 
Indeed,  it  is  eminently  necessary  that  he  should  learn 
to  recognize  it,  because  there  are  many  other  entities 
on  the  astral  and  mental  planes  who  are  very  ready  in 
the  most  friendly  way  and  with  the  best  intentions  to 
make  similar  suggestions,  and  it  is  assuredly  well  that 
the  pupil  should  learn  to  distinguish  from  whom  they 
come. 

We  must  not,  however,  confuse  such  use  by  a  Master 
of  his  pupil's  body  with  the  mediumship  which  we  have 
so  often  characterized  as  objectionable.  For  example, 
there  have  been  some  occasions  on  which  one  or  other 
of  our  Masters  has  spoken  through  our  President,  and 
it  has  been  stated  that  on  such  occasions  sometimes  her 
very  voice  and  manner  and  even  her  features  have  been 
changed.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  in  all  such 
cases  she  has  retained  the  fullest  consciousness  and  has 
known  exactly  who  was  speaking  and  why.  That  is 
a  condition  so  different  from  what  is  ordinarily  under- 
stood by  mediumship  that  it  would  be  quite  unfair  to 
call  it  by  the  same  name.  There  can  be  no  objection 
to  such  use  of  a  pupil's  body,  but  it  is  only  in  the  case 
of  a  very  few  pupils  that  the  Masters  have  ever  done 
this. 

When  it  happens,  the  President's  consciousness  is 
just  as  fully  active  in  her  physical  brain  as  ever,  but 
instead  of  directing  her  organs  of  speech  herself  she 
listens  while  the  Master  makes  use  of  them.  He  form- 
ulates the  sentences  in  His  own  brain  and  then  trans- 
fers them  to  hers.    While  this  is  being  done  she  can 


34  THE  INNER  LIFE 

use  her  own  brain-power,  as  it  were  passively,  to  lis- 
ten, to  understand,  and  to  admire  ;  but  I  conceive  that  it 
would  hardly  be  possible  for  her  at  absolutely  the  same 
moment  to  compose  a  sentence  upon  some  quite  differ- 
ent subject.  I  suppose  that  the  highest  form  of  spirit- 
ualistic control  may  more  or  less  approximate  to  this, 
but  probably  very  rarely,  and  hardly  ever  com- 
pletely. 

The  influence  of  a  Master  is  so  powerful  that  it  may 
well  shine  through  to  almost  any  extent,  and  any  one 
of  the  audience  who  is  really  impressible  might  be  con- 
scious of  His  presence  even  to  the  extent  of  seeing  His 
features  or  hearing  His  voice,  instead  of  those  of  His 
pupil.  It  is  not  very  probable  that  any  actual  physical 
change  takes  place,  such  as  would  be  visible  to  non- 
sensitive  spectators.  In  spiritualism  I  have  indeed 
seen  cases  in  which  the  medium's  voice  and  manner, 
and  even  his  very  features,  were  actually  physically 
entirely  changed,  but  that  always  means  a  complete 
suppression  of  his  ego  by  the  entity  speaking  through 
him,  and  this  would  be  quite  foreign  to  the  system  of 
training  adopted  by  our  Masters. 

There  is  yet  a  third  stage  of  even  more  intimate 
union,  when  the  pupil  becomes  what  is  called  the  "son" 
of  the  Master.  This  is  accorded  only  after  the  Master 
has  had  considerable  experience  of  the  man  as  an  ac- 
cepted pupil,  when  He  is  quite  certain  that  nothing  can 
arise  in  the  mind  or  astral  body  of  the  pupil  which  will 
ever  need  to  be  shut  off.  For  that  is  perhaps  the  prin- 
cipal difference  which  can  be  readily  explained  on  the 
physical  plane  between  the  position  of  the  accepted 
disciple  and  of  the  "son" — that  the  accepted  disciple, 
though  truly  a  part  of  the  Master's  consciousness,  can 
still  be  shut  off  when  it  seems  desirable,  whereas  the 
"son"  is  drawn  into  a  union  so  close  and  so  sacred  that 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  35 

even  the  power  of  the  Master  cannot  undo  what  has 
been  done  to  the  extent  of  separating  these  conscious- 
nesses even  for  a  moment. 

These  then  are  the  three  stages  of  the  relation  of  a 
pupil  to  his  Master ;  first,  the  probationary  period,  dur- 
ing which  he  is  not  in  any  real  sense  a  pupil  at  all; 
second,  the  period  of  accepted  discipleship ;  third,  the 
period  of  "sonship."  It  must  be  clearly  understood 
that  these  relations  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
initiations  or  steps  on  the  Path,  which  belong  to  an 
entirely  different  category,  and  are  tokens  of  the  man's 
relation  not  to  his  Master  but  to  the  Great  White 
Brotherhood  and  to  its  august  Head.  One  may  find  a 
not  inapt  symbol  of  these  respective  relationships  in 
the  position  in  which  an  undergraduate  stands  with 
regard  to  the  head  of  his  college  and  to  the  university 
as  a  whole.  The  university  as  such  requires  the  man 
to  pass  certain  examinations,  and  the  precise  methods 
in  which  he  prepares  himself  for  this,  are,  compara- 
tively speaking,  matters  of  indifference  to  it.  It  is  the 
university,  and  not  the  head  of  the  college,  that  ar- 
ranges the  examination  and  confers  the  various 
degrees ;  the  work  of  the  head  of  the  college  is  simply  to 
see  that  the  candidate  is  duly  prepared.  In  the  process 
of  such  preparation  he  may,  as  a  private  gentleman, 
enter  into  whatever  social  or  other  relations  he  may 
think  proper  with  his  pupil ;  but  all  that  is  not  the  busi- 
ness of  the  university. 

Just  in  the  same  way  the  Great  White  Brotherhood 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  relations  between  the  Master 
and  His  pupil ;  that  is  a  matter  solely  for  the  private 
consideration  of  the  Master  himself.  Whenever  the 
Master  considers  that  the  pupil  is  fit  for  the  first  initi- 
ation, He  gives  notice  of  that  fact  and  presents  him  for 
it,  and  ttie  Brotherhood  asks  only  whether  he  is  ready 


36  THE  INNER  LIFE 

for  the  initiation,  and  not  what  is  the  relationship 
between  him  and  any  Master.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
true  that  a  candidate  for  initiation  must  be  proposed 
and  seconded  by  two  of  the  higher  members  of  the 
Brotherhood — that  is  to  say,  by  two  who  have  reached 
the  level  of  adeptship ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  Master 
would  not  propose  a  man  for  the  tests  of  initiation 
unless  He  had  with  regard  to  him  the  certainty  of  his 
fitness,  which  could  only  come  from  such  close  identifi- 
cation with  his  consciousness  as  that  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken. 

When  a  student  hears  all  this  there  naturally  arises 
in  his  mind  the  question,  "How  can  I  become  the  pupil 
of  a  Master?  What  can  I  do  that  will  attract  His  atten- 
tion?" As  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  quite  unnecessary  that 
we  should  try  to  attract  His  attention,  for  the  Masters 
are  ever  watching  for  those  whom  They  can  help  to  be 
of  use  to  Them  in  the  great  work  which  They  have  to 
do,  and  we  need  not  have  the  slightest  fear  that  we 
shall  be  overlooked. 

I  remember  very  well  an  incident  of  the  early  days 
of  my  own  connection  with  the  Great  Ones  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ago.  I  met  on  the  physical  plane  a  man 
of  great  enthusiasm  and  of  the  most  saintly  character, 
one  who  believed  thoroughly  in  the  existence  of  the 
Masters,  and  devoted  his  life  to  the  one  object  of  quali- 
fying himself  for  Their  service.  He  seemed  to  me  a 
man  in  every  way  so  entirely  suitable  for  discipleship, 
so  obviously  better  than  myself  in  many  ways,  that  I 
could  not  understand  how  it  was  that  he  was  not 
already  accepted ;  and  so,  being  young  in  the  work  and 
ignorant,  one  day  when  a  good  opportunity  offered 
itself  I  very  humbly  and  as  it  were  apologetically  men- 
tioned his  name  to  the  Master  with  the  suggestion  that 
he  might  perhaps  prove  a  good  instrument.    A  smile 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  37 

of  kindly  amusement  broke  out  upon  the  Master's  face, 
as  He  said : 

"Ah,  you  need  not  fear  that  your  friend  is  being 
overlooked ;  no  one  can  ever  be  overlooked ;  but  in  this 
case  there  still  remains  a  certain  karma  to  be  worked 
out,  which  makes  it  impossible  at  the  moment  to  accept 
your  suggestion.  Soon  your  friend  will  pass  away  from 
the  physical  plane,  and  soon  he  will  return  to  it  again, 
and  then  the  expiation  will  be  complete  and  what  you 
desire  for  him  will  have  become  possible." 

And  then,  with  the  gentle  kindness  which  is  always 
so  prominent  a  characteristic  in  Him,  He  blended  my 
consciousness  with  His  in  an  even  more  intimate  man- 
ner, and  raised  it  to  a  plane  far  higher  than  I  could 
then  reach,  and  from  that  elevation  He  showed  me  how 
the  Masters  look  out  upon  the  world.  The  whole  earth 
lay  before  us  with  all  its  millions  of  souls,  undeveloped 
most  of  them,  and  therefore  inconspicuous ;  but  wher- 
ever amidst  all  that  mighty  multitude  there  was  one 
who  was  approaching  even  at  a  great  distance  the  point 
at  which  definite  use  could  be  made  of  him,  he  stood  out 
among  the  rest  just  as  the  flame  of  a  light-house  stands 
out  in  the  darkness  of  the  night. 

"Now  you  see,"  said  the  Master,  "how  utterly  impos- 
sible it  would  be  that  any  one  should  be  overlooked  who 
is  even  within  measurable  distance  of  the  possibility 
of  acceptance  as  a  probationer." 

We  can  do  nothing  on  our  side  but  steadily  work  at 
the  improvement  of  our  own  character  and  endeavour 
in  every  possible  way,  by  the  study  of  Theosophical 
works,  by  self-development,  and  by  the  unselfishness  of 
our  devotion  to  the  interests  of  others,  to  fit  ourselves 
for  the  honour  which  we  desire,  having  within  our 
minds  the  utter  certainty  that  as  soon  as  we  are  ready 
the  acceptance  will  assuredly  come.    We  can  do  nothing 


38  THE  INNER  LIFE 

but  fit  ourselves,  and  we  have  the  certainty  that  as  soon 
as  we  are  ready  we  shall  be  accepted,  because  we  know 
how  great  is  the  need  of  helpers.  But  until  we  can  be 
utilized  economically — until,  that  is  to  say,  the  force 
spent  upon  us  will  bring  forth,  through  our  action, 
more  result  than  it  would  if  spent  in  any  other  way,  it 
would  be  a  violation  of  duty  on  the  part  of  the  Master 
to  draw  us  into  close  relations  with  Him. 

We  may  be  quite  sure  that  there  are  in  reality  no 
exceptions  to  this  rule,  even  though  we  may  sometimes 
think  that  we  have  seen  some.  A  man  may  become  a 
probationary  pupil  of  the  Master  while  he  has  still  some 
obvious  faults,  but  we  may  be  very  sure  that  in  such  a 
case  there  are  good  qualities  under  the  surface  which 
far  more  than  counterbalance  the  superficial  evils.  An- 
other thing  that  must  be  remembered  is  that,  like  the 
rest  of  us,  the  Great  Masters  of  Wisdom  have  a  long 
line  of  lives  behind  Them,  and  in  those  lives,  like  others, 
They  have  made  certain  karmic  ties,  and  so  sometimes 
it  happens  that  a  particular  individual  has  a  claim  on 
Them  for  some  service  rendered  long  ago  in  the  remote 
past.  In  the  lines  of  past  lives  which  we  have  exam- 
ined we  sometimes  come  across  instances  of  such  a 
karmic  link. 

One  well-known  case  is  that  of  a  certain  member 
who,  when  a  powerful  noble  in  Egypt  six  thousand 
years  ago,  used  his  influence  with  the  authorities  of  one 
of  the  great  temples  to  introduce  into  it  as  a  favoured 
student  a  young  man  who  displayed  the  keenest  inter- 
est in  occult  matters.  That  young  student  took  up 
occultism  with  the  greatest  eagerness  and  made  the 
most  astonishing  progress  in  it,  so  that  in  every  life 
thereafter  he  continued  the  studies  begun  in  ancient 
Khem.  Between  then  and  now  that  young  student  has 
attained  adeptship,  and  thus  passed  on  far  in  advance 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  39 

of  the  friend  who  then  introduced  him  to  the  temple. 
In  the  work  which  He  has  had  to  do  in  these  later  days 
He  needed  some  one  to  put  before  the  world  certain 
truths  which  had  to  be  published,  because  the  time  for 
such  unfoldment  was  fully  ripe.  He  looked  round  for 
an  instrument  whom  He  could  use,  and  He  found  His 
old  friend  and  helper  of  six  thousand  years  ago  in  a 
position  in  which  it  was  possible  to  employ  him  in  this 
work.  At  once  He  remembered  His  ancient  debt  and 
repaid  it  by  giving  to  His  friend  this  wonderful  priv- 
ilege of  being  the  channel  of  the  truth  to  the  world. 

Such  cases  indeed  are  fairly  numerous.  We  all  know 
how  at  a  period  still  far  earlier  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  Theosophical  Society  saved  the  life  of  the  other, 
who  was  at  that  time  the  eldest  son  of  Him  who  is  now 
the  Master  and  teacher  of  both,  and  thus  established  a 
karmic  claim  which  has  drawn  those  three  into  close 
relationship  ever  since.  Again,  on  another  occasion  in 
the  remote  past  our  President  saved  the  life  of  her 
present  teacher  when  there  was  a  conspiracy  to  assas- 
sinate Him ;  and  in  yet  another  instance  one  who  has 
but  just  passed  the  portals  of  initiation  saved  the  life 
of  the  Bodhisattva,  the  great  Lord  Maitreya  himself. 

Now  all  these  are  unquestionably  karmic  links,  and 
they  constitute  debts  which  will  be  fully  repaid.  So  it 
may  happen  to  any  of  us  that  in  some  past  life  we  have 
come  into  touch  with  One  who  is  now  a  Master,  or  done 
Him  some  slight  service,  and  if  so,  that  may  well  prove 
to  have  been  the  commencement  of  an  association 
which  will  ripen  into  discipleship  on  our  side.  It  fre- 
quently happens  that  people  are  drawn  together  by  a 
strong  common  interest  in  occultism,  and  in  later  lives, 
when  some  of  these  have  out-distanced  the  others,  those 
who  were  once  friends  and  fellow-students  often  fall 
naturally  into  the  relation  of  teacher  and  pupil. 


40  THE  INNER  LIFE 

No  doubt  a  man  may  attract  Their  attention  in  many 
ways ;  he  may  bring  himself  to  the  portals  of  the  Path 
by  association  with  those  in  advance  of  him,  by  the 
force  of  sheer  hard  thinking,  by  devotion,  or  by  ear- 
nest endeavour  in  good  works;  but  all  these  are  after 
all  merely  so  many  divisions  of  the  one  Way,  because 
they  all  of  them  mean  that  he  is  making  himself  fit  for 
one  or  other  department  of  the  work  that  is  to  be  done. 
And  so  when  by  any  of  these  methods  he  reaches  a  cer- 
tain level,  he  inevitably  attracts  the  attention  of  the 
Masters  of  the  Wisdom  and  comes  in  some  way  into 
connection  with  Them,  though  probably  not  upon  the 
physical  plane.  The  Master's  usual  plan  is  that  he  is 
brought  into  connection  with  one  or  other  of  Their 
more  prominent  pupils,  and  this  is  very  much  the  safest 
way,  since  it  is  impossible  for  any  ordinary  person  to 
assure  himself  of  the  good  faith  of  astral  communica- 
tions. 

Unless  a  man  has  had  very  wide  experience  in  con- 
nection with  mediumship,  he  would  find  it  very  diffi- 
cult to  realize  how  many  quite  ordinary  people  there 
are  upon  the  astral  plane  who  are  burning  with  the 
desire  to  pose  as  great  world-teachers.  They  are  gen- 
erally quite  honest  in  their  intentions,  and  really  think 
that  they  have  teaching  to  give  which  will  save  the 
world.  Now  that  they  are  dead  they  have  fully  real- 
ized the  worthlessness  of  mere  worldly  objects,  and 
they  feel  (quite  rightly)  that  if  they  could  only  impress 
upon  mankind  in  general  the  ideas  which  they  have 
now  acquired,  the  whole  world  would  immediately  be- 
come a  very  different  place.  They  are  also  fully  per- 
suaded that  they  have  only  to  publish  their  discoveries 
upon  the  physical  plane  in  order  at  once  to  convince 
everybody  of  their  inherent  reasonableness,  and  so  they 
select  some  impressionable  lady  and  tell  her  that  they 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  41 

have  chosen  her  out  of  all  the  world  to  be  the  medium 
of  a  magnificent  revelation. 

Now  it  is  rather  flattering  to  the  average  person  to 
be  told  that  he  or  she  is  the  sole  medium  in  all  the 
world  for  some  mighty  entity,  the  only  channel  for 
some  exclusive  and  transcendent  teaching;  and  even 
though  the  communicating  entity  should  disclaim  any 
special  greatness  (which  he  usually  does  not)  this  is 
put  down  to  praiseworthy  modesty  on  his  part,  and  he 
is  described  as  at  least  an  archangel,  even  if  not  a  still 
more  direct  manifestation  of  the  Deity.  What  such  a 
communicating  entity  forgets  is  that  when  he  was  alive 
on  the  physical  plane  other  people  were  making  similar 
communications  through  various  mediums,  and  that 
then  he  never  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  them,  nor 
was  in  any  way  affected  by  what  they  said,  and  so  he 
does  not  realise  that  precisely  as  he,  when  immersed 
in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  declined  to  be  moved  by 
those  very  communications,  so  will  all  the  world  now 
go  on  contentedly  with  its  own  business  and  pay  no 
attention  to  him. 

Often  such  entities  assume  distinguished  names 
from  what  may  almost  be  called  a  pardonable  motive, 
for  they  know  human  nature  well  enough  to  be  aware 
that  if  John  Smith  or  Thomas  Brown  comes  back  from 
the  dead  and  enunciates  a  certain  doctrine  it  will  have 
very  little  chance  of  acceptance,  no  matter  how  excel- 
lent and  how  entirely  true  it  may  be;  whereas  the 
same  words  uttered  by  George  Washington,  Julius 
Csesar  or  the  Archangel  Michael  would  be  at  least  re- 
spectfully considered  and  very  probably  blindly  ac- 
cepted. 

Any  man  functioning  on  the  astral  plane  has  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  insight  into  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  those  with  whom  he  is  dealing,  and  therefore  it  is 


42  THE  INNER  LIFE 

not  wonderful  that  when  such  people  come  into  contact 
with  the  Theosophists,  and  see  their  minds  to  be  full 
of  reverence  for  the  Masters  of  Wisdom,  they  should 
sometimes  personate  those  very  Masters  of  Wisdom 
in  order  to  command  more  ready  acceptance  for  what- 
ever ideas  they  wish  to  promulgate.  Also  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  there  are  those  who  bear  no  good 
will  to  our  Masters,  and  desire  to  do  Them  any  injury 
which  lies  within  their  power.  They  cannot  of  course 
harm  Them  directly,  and  therefore  they  sometimes  try 
to  do  so  through  the  pupils  whom  They  love.  One  of 
the  easiest  ways  in  which  they  can  produce  difficulties 
is  by  assuming  the  form  of  the  Master  who  is  so 
strongly  revered  by  their  victim,  and  in  many  cases 
such  an  imitation  is  quite  perfect,  so  far  as  the  phy- 
sical appearance  is  concerned,  except  that  it  always 
seems  to  me  that  they  can  never  quite  get  the  right 
expression  into  the  eyes.  One  who  has  developed  the 
sight  of  the  higher  planes  cannot  be  thus  deluded,  as 
it  is  quite  impossible  for  any  of  these  entities  to  imi- 
tate the  causal  body  of  the  Master. 

Most  assuredly  we  shall  do  well  to  heed  diligently  the 
wise  precept  in  The  Voice  of  the  Silence,  "Seek  not  thy 
Guru  in  those  mayavic  regions."  Accept  no  teaching 
from  some  self-appointed  preceptor  on  the  astral  plane, 
but  receive  all  communications  and  advice  which  come 
thence  precisely  as  you  would  receive  similar  advice  or 
remarks  made  by  a  stranger  on  the  physical  plane. 
Take  them  for  what  they  are  worth,  and  accept  the  ad- 
vice or  reject  it  as  your  own  conscience  dictates,  with- 
out paying  attention  to  its  alleged  source.  Seek  rather 
for  teaching  which  satisfies  the  intellect,  and  apply  the 
test  of  intellect  and  conscience  to  any  claims  which  are 
put  forward. 

Let  it  never  be  forgotten  that  ours  are  not  the  only 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  43 

lines.  The  two  Masters  who  are  most  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  the  work  of  the  Theosophical  Society  repre- 
sent two  different  rays  or  methods  of  teaching;  but 
there  are  others  besides  these.  All  schools  of  the 
higher  teaching  give  a  preliminary  training  to  purify 
the  character,  but  the  particular  teachings  given  and 
practices  recommended  differ  according  to  the  type  of 
the  teacher.  But  all  teachers  who  belong  to  the  Great 
White  Lodge  insist  upon  the  attainment  of  the  highest 
only  by  means  of  the  Path  of  Holiness,  and  the  quench- 
ing of  desire  by  conquering  it  and  not  by  gratifying  it. 
The  pupil  will  be  employed  by  his  Master  in  many 
different  ways.  Some  are  set  to  take  up  the  lines  of 
work  indicated  in  the  book  Invisible  Helpers;  others 
are  employed  specifically  in  assisting  the  Masters  per- 
sonally in  some  piece  of  work  which  They  happen  to 
have  undertaken ;  some  are  set  astrally  to  deliver  lec- 
tures to  audiences  of  less  developed  souls,  or  to  help 
and  teach  others  who  are  free  temporarily  during 
sleep,  or  are  permanently  after  death  denizens  of  the 
astral  world.  When  a  pupil  falls  asleep  at  night  he 
usually  reports  himself  to  his  Master,  and  he  is  then 
told  if  there  is  any  definite  piece  of  work  which  he  can 
do.  If  there  happens  to  be  nothing  special  he  will  take 
up  his  usual  nocturnal  work,  whatever  that  may  be. 
Every  invisible  helper  acquires  a  number  of  regular 
cases  or  patients  who  are  put  under  his  charge  just 
exactly  as  are  those  of  a  doctor  on  the  physical  plane ; 
and  whenever  there  is  no  unusual  work  for  him  to  do 
he  simply  goes  on  his  ordinary  rounds,  visits  these 
cases  and  does  his  best  for  them.  So  that  he  has  al- 
ways plenty  of  work  of  this  kind  to  fill  up  his  time 
when  he  is  not  especially  needed,  as  for  some  sudden 
catastrophe  which  throws  out  a  large  number  of  souls 
simultaneously  into  the  astral  plane  in  a  condition  of 


44  THE  INNER  LIFE 

terror.  Most  of  such  training  in  astral  work  as  the 
pupil  needs  is  usually  given  by  one  of  the  older  pupils 
of  the  Master. 

If  it  is  necessary  that  the  pupil  should  undertake 
any  special  system  of  psychic  development  on  the  phy- 
sical plane,  the  Master  will  indicate  it  to  him  either 
directly  or  through  one  of  His  recognized  pupils.  What 
is  prescribed  in  this  way  differs  according  to  the  char- 
acter and  need  of  the  pupil,  and  it  is  usually  best  for 
us  to  wait  until  we  are  definitely  told  before  attempt- 
ing any  practices  of  this  kind.  Even  when  we  are  told 
of  them  it  is  best  that  we  should  keep  them  to  our- 
selves, and  not  discuss  them  with  others,  as  it  is  more 
than  probable  that  they  would  be  unsuited  to  anyone 
else.  Here  in  India  among  the  hosts  of  minor  teachers 
each  man  has  his  own  methods,  the  difference  depend- 
ing partly  on  the  different  schools  of  philosophy  to 
which  they  belong,  and  partly  upon  their  different 
ways  of  looking  at  the  same  thing.  But  whatever  their 
methods  are,  they  usually  keep  them  very  secret  in 
order  to  avoid  the  responsibility  of  their  being  wrongly 
used. 

The  harm  that  may  be  done  by  the  indiscriminate 
publication  of  any  of  these  half-physical  systems  has 
been  very  clearly  exemplified  in  America,  where  a  book 
by  an  Indian  teacher  has  obtained  a  large  circulation. 
This  teacher  guardedly  mentioned  certain  practices, 
prefacing  his  teaching  with  a  carefully  expressed  warn- 
ing as  to  the  necessity  of  preparation  by  the  training 
of  character.  But  nevertheless  what  he  has  written 
has  caused  a  great  deal  of  suffering,  because  people 
have  uniformly  disregarded  his  warning  as  to  training 
and  have  recklessly  tried  to  carry  out  the  practices 
which  he  described.  In  a  tour  a  few  years  ago  in  that 
country  I  met  quite  a  number  of  people  who  through 


MASTERS  AND  PUPILS  45 

attempting  to  follow  his  directions  had  made  them- 
selves physical  wrecks.  Some  had  become  insane,  some 
were  subject  to  fits,  and  others  had  fallen  under  the 
spell  of  various  obsessing  entities.  In  order  that  such 
practices  as  these  may  be  attempted  with  safety  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  that  they  be  undertaken  (as  they 
always  are  undertaken  in  India)  in  the  actual  presence 
of  a  teacher  who  watches  the  results  and  at  once  inter- 
feres when  he  sees  that  anything  is  going  wrong.  In- 
deed, in  this  country  it  is  usual  for  the  pupil  to  remain 
in  physical  proximity  to  his  teacher,  because  here 
people  understand  what  I  mentioned  some  time  ago — 
that  the  first  and  greatest  work  which  a  teacher  has 
to  do  is  to  attune  the  aura  of  the  pupil  to  his  own — to 
annul  the  effect  of  the  ordinary  disturbed  conditions 
which  prevail  in  the  world,  to  show  him  how  to  aban- 
don all  that  and  to  live  in  a  world  of  absolute  calm. 
One  of  our  own  Masters  said  in  one  of  the  earlier  let- 
ters, "Come  out  of  your  world  into  ours,"  and  this  of 
course  refers  not  to  a  place  but  to  a  condition  of  mind. 
Remember  that  everyone  who  meditates  upon  the 
Master  makes  a  definite  link  with  Him,  which  shows 
itself  to  clairvoyant  vision  as  a  kind  of  line  of  light. 
The  Master  always  subconsciously  feels  the  impinging 
of  such  a  line,  and  sends  out  along  it  in  response  a 
steady  stream  of  magnetism  which  continues  to  play 
long  after  the  meditation  is  over.  The  regular  prac- 
tice of  such  meditation  and  concentration  is  of  the 
utmost  help  to  the  aspirant,  and  the  regularity  is  one 
of  the  most  important  factors  in  producing  the  result. 
It  should  be  undertaken  daily  at  the  same  hour,  and  we 
should  steadily  persevere  with  it,  even  though  no  ob- 
vious effect  may  be  produced.  When  no  effect  appears 
we  must  be  especially  careful  to  avoid  depression,  be- 
cause depression  makes  it  more  difficult  for  a  Master's 


46  THE  INNER  LIFE 

influence  to  act  upon  us,  and  it  also  shows  that  we  are 
thinking  more  of  ourselves  than  of  the  Master. 


The  Path  of  Progress 

When  we  state  the  great  truth  that  all  evolution 
came  forth  from  the  Divine,  and  that  we  ourselves  are 
but  sparks  of  the  divine  flame  and  one  day  to  be  re- 
united to  it,  people  often  ask  us  two  not  unnatural 
questions.  First  they  say,  "Why  should  the  divine 
Being  have  sent  us  forth,  since  after  all  we  are  part  of 
Him,  and  so  were  divine  from  the  beginning?  Why  in 
fact  did  the  Logos  manifest  Himself  in  matter  at  all, 
seeing  that  He  was  perfect  and  glorious  and  all-wise 
in  the  beginning?  Secondly,  if  we  emanate  from  the 
divine  Spirit,  why  were  we  sent  forth  into  wickedness, 
and  how  can  man,  coming  forth  from  so  pure  a  source, 
enter  into  such  degradation  as  we  constantly  see  around 
us?"  Since  these  questions  recur  so  often,  it  is  worth 
while  for  us  to  consider  how  they  may  be  answered. 

Why  the  Logos  manifested  Himself  is  scarcely  our 
business.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  He  has 
chosen  to  do  so,  that  we  are  part  of  His  scheme,  and 
that  it  is  therefore  our  duty  to  try  to  understand  that 
scheme  so  far  as  we  can,  and  to  adapt  ourselves  to  it. 
But  if  there  be  any  who  desire  to  speculate  upon  this 
mystery,  perhaps  no  better  suggestion  can  be  found 
for  them  than  that  which  was  given  by  the  Gnostic 
Doctors : 

"God  is  Love,  but  Love  itself  cannot  be  perfect  un- 
less it  has  those  upon  whom  it  can  be  lavished  and 
by  whom  it  can  be  returned.  Therefore  He  put  forth 
of  Himself  into  matter,  and  He  limited  His  glory,  in 
order  that  through  this  natural  and  slow  process  of 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  47 

evolution  we  might  come  into  being;  and  we  in  turn 
according  to  His  will  are  to  develop  until  we  reach 
even  His  own  level,  and  then  the  very  Love  of  God 
itself  will  become  more  perfect,  because  it  will  then 
be  lavished  on  those,  His  own  children,  who  will  fully 
understand  and  return  it,  and  so  His  great  scheme  will 
be  realised  and  His  Will  will  be  done." 

As  to  the  further  consideration  why  the  emanation 
should  have  taken  place  in  this  particular  way,  that 
again  is  not  our  affair,  for  we  are  concerned  only  with 
the  fact s  of  evolution,  not  the  reasons  for  it ;  yet  there 
seems  little  difficulty  in  at  least  indicating  the  lines 
along  which  an  answer  may  be  found.  It  is  quite  true 
that  man  is  an  emanation  from  the  substance  of  the 
Divine,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  substance, 
when  it  issues  forth,  is  undifferentiated,  and  from  our 
point  of  view  unconscious;  that  is,  it  has  within  it 
rather  the  potentiality  of  consciousness  than  anything 
to  which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  applying  that  term. 

In  its  descent  into  matter  it  is  simply  gathering 
round  it  the  matter  of  the  different  planes  through 
which  it  passes,  and  it  is  not  until,  having  reached  the 
lowest  point  of  its  evolution  in  the  mineral  kingdom, 
it  turns  upwards  and  begins  its  return  to  the  level 
whence  it  came,  that  it  commences  to  develop  what  we 
call  consciousness  at  all.  It  is  for  that  reason  that 
man  began  first  of  all  to  unfold  his  consciousness  on 
the  physical  plane,  and  it  is  only  after  fully  attaining 
that  that  he  begins  to  be  conscious  upon  the  astral  and 
mental  planes  in  turn. 

No  doubt  God  might  have  made  man  perfect  and 
obedient  to  the  law  by  one  act  of  His  will,  but  is  it  not 
obvious  that  such  a  man  would  have  been  a  mere  au- 
tomaton— that  the  will  working  in  him  would  have  been 
God's  will,  not  his  own?    What  the  LOGOS  desired  was 


48  THE  INNER  LIFE 

to  call  into  existence,  from  His  own  substance,  those 
who  should  be  like  unto  Him  in  power  and  glory,  abso- 
lutely free  to  choose  and  yet  absolutely  certain  to  choose 
the  right  and  not  the  wrong,  because  in  addition  to 
perfect  power  they  would  have  perfect  knowledge  and 
perfect  love. 

It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  any  other  way  in  which 
this  result  could  be  achieved  but  that  which  has  been 
adopted — the  plan  of  leaving  man  free  and  therefore 
capable  of  making  mistakes.  From  those  mistakes  he 
learns  and  gains  experience,  and  although  in  such  a 
scheme  as  this  it  is  inevitable  that  there  should  be  evil, 
and  therefore  sorrow  and  suffering,  yet  when  the  part 
these  play  as  factors  in  man's  evolution  is  properly  un- 
derstood we  shall  see  that  the  Chinese  proverb  is  true 
which  tells  us  that  evil  is  but  the  dark  shadow  of  good. 
Most  emphatically  it  is  true  that,  however  black  the 
clouds  may  look  from  below,  those  clouds  are  by  their 
very  nature  transient,  and  above  and  behind  them  all 
the  mighty  sun,  which  will  at  last  dissipate  them,  is 
always  shining,  so  that  the  old  saying  is  justified  that 
all  things,  even  the  most  unlikely-looking,  are  in  reality 
working  together  for  good. 

This  much  at  least  all  who  have  made  any  real  prog- 
ress knoiv  for  themselves  as  an  absolute  certainty; 
while  they  cannot  hope  to  prove  it  to  those  who  have 
not  as  yet  had  the  experience,  at  least  they  can  bear 
testimony  to  it  with  no  uncertain  voice,  and  that  testi- 
mony is  surely  not  without  its  value  for  souls  who  are 
still  struggling  towards  the  light. 

As  to  the  second  question,  we  may  fairly  point  out 
that  it  assumes  too  much.  It  is  not  true  to  say  that 
we  are  sent  forth  into  wickedness  and  degradation. 
In  fact,  strictly  speaking,  we  are  not  sent  forth  at  all. 
What  happens  is  something  quite  different.    The  LOGOS 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  49 

pours  forth  into  manifestation  the  stream  of  force 
which  we  may  describe  as  part  of  Himself  or  of  His 
vesture.  This  stream  contains  in  potentiality  the  vast 
hosts  of  monads,  each  of  which,  when  fully  developed, 
may  itself  become  a  Logos.  But  for  such  development 
it  is  necessary  that  it  should  manifest  itself  through 
matter  of  various  grades,  that  the  individuality  should 
very  slowly  and  gradually  be  built  up,  and  then  that 
certain  latent  qualities  should  be  brought  out.  This 
is  the  process  of  evolution,  and  all  the  great  laws  of 
the  universe  are  arranged  to  facilitate  this  process. 
In  its  earlier  stages  the  manifestation  of  the  monad 
is  entirely  controlled  by  these  laws,  not  having  yet 
developed  any  sort  of  individuality  or  soul  of  its  own. 

But  there  comes  a  stage  in  which  individuality  is 
attained,  and  will  is  beginning  to  be  developed.  The 
plan  of  the  Logos  is  to  allow  a  man  a  certain  amount 
of  freedom  (at  first  a  very  small  amount)  in  the  use 
of  this  dawning  will,  and  naturally  enough  by  the  law 
of  averages  this  primitive  individual  uses  his  will  about 
as  often  wrongly  as  rightly,  although  he  has  almost 
always  teachers  belonging  to  earlier  evolutions,  who 
tell  him  the  way  in  which  he  should  walk.  When  he 
uses  his  will  wrongly  (that  is  to  say,  in  a  direction 
opposed  to  the  current  of  evolution)  the  mechanical 
working  of  nature's  laws  brings  suffering  as  the  result 
of  such  action.  Since  this  happens  over  and  over  again, 
the  primitive  ego  at  last  learns  by  experience  that  he 
must  obey  the  wiser  teaching  given  to  him,  and  as  soon 
as  the  determination  to  do  so  has  become  actually  a 
part  of  himself  a  wider  field  of  freedom  of  action  opens 
before  him. 

In  this  new  field  in  turn  he  is  sure  to  act  wrongly 
sometimes  as  well  as  rightly,  so  that  the  same  process 
is  repeated  again  and  again,  always  involving  suffer- 


50  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ing  where  mistakes  have  been  made.  Whatever  of 
"wickedness  and  degradation"  may  exist  is  always  the 
result  of  the  action  of  men  who  have  used  their  free- 
will wrongly,  and  are  in  process  of  learning  how  to  use 
it  rightly,  and  as  soon  as  that  lesson  shall  have  been 
universally  learned  all  these  evil  effects  will  pass  away. 
It  is  therefore  obvious  that  whatever  of  evil  exists  in 
the  world  is  entirely  the  doing  of  its  inhabitants,  and 
is  in  its  nature  temporary.  However  terrible  and 
deeply  rooted  it  may  seem  to  us,  it  cannot  possibly  be 
permanent,  for  it  is  of  the  essence  of  things  that  it  must 
pass  away  when  its  causes  are  removed.  For  its  exist- 
ence while  it  lasts  we  must  blame,  not  the  great  First 
Cause,  but  ourselves,  because  we  are  failing  to  carry 
out  His  plan. 

We  often  exhort  people  to  follow  the  higher  course 
rather  than  the  lower,  but  I  think  that  the  truth  is  that 
a  man  always  follows  the  highest  about  which  he  is 
really  certain.  The  difficulty  is  that  in  so  many  cases 
the  higher  teaching  seems  vague  and  unreal  to  many 
people,  and  so  although  they  profess  to  believe  it,  and 
really  think  that  they  do  believe  it,  when  it  comes  to 
the  point  of  action  they  find  it  too  vague  to  trust  their 
lives  to  it. 

For  example,  many  people  who  think  themselves  re- 
ligious are  yet  to  be  found  seeking  position  and  wealth. 
That  attitude  would  be  entirely  reasonable  if  they 
were  materialists  and  if  they  did  not  pretend  to  be- 
lieve, in  anything  higher ;  but  when  we  find  a  religious 
man  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  worldly  objects  there 
is  clearly  something  wrong,  something  illogical.  The 
fact  is  that  he  does  not  really  believe  in  his  religion ; 
he  is  not  thoroughly  convinced  of  its  truth,  for  if  he 
were  he  could  not  be  following  after  other  things.  He 
is  following  that  about  which  he  is  really  sure;  he  is 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  51 

quite  certain,  without  the  slightest  mental  reservation, 
about  the  desirability  of  money  and  power.  He  knows 
that  he  wants  these  things,  and  he  thinks  he  knows 
that  if  he  gets  them  they  will  make  him  happy.  There- 
fore he  devotes  all  his  energy  and  time  to  their  acquisi- 
tion, and  we  must  remember  that  in  doing  that  he  is 
at  least  developing  will  and  perseverance. 

Now  if  you  can  in  any  way  manage  to  make  him  as 
sure  of  the  value  of  the  higher  things  as  he  is  now 
about  the  value  of  pounds,  shillings  and  pence,  he  will 
at  once  turn  that  will  and  that  perseverance  to  the 
service  of  the  higher  development,  and  he  will  seek 
after  realities  with  just  the  same  intensity  that  he  is 
now  devoting  to  the  pursuit  of  shadows.  This  is  pre- 
cisely what  the  study  of  Theosophy  will  do  for  him. 
A  man  who  thoroughly  understands  Theosophy  knows 
that  he  is  here  for  a  certain  purpose,  and  that  it  is  most 
emphatically  his  business  to  devote  himself  entirely 
to  the  working  out  of  that  purpose.  He  realizes  thor- 
oughly that  there  are  things  worth  doing  and  aims 
worth  pursuing,  and  he  devotes  himself  to  them  with 
the  same  avidity  which  he  previously  displayed  in  fol- 
lowing the  acquisition  of  money  or  position. 

But  in  order  to  do  this  it  is  not  sufficient  merely  to 
be  vaguely  interested,  merely  to  read  a  few  books.  The 
man  must  really  believe  it,  must  be  thoroughly  and 
utterly  convinced  of  its  truth.  Now  the  only  way  in 
which  this  utter  conviction  can  come  to  a  man  is  by 
means  of  realizing  some  part  of  it,  however  small,  for 
himself  and  at  first-hand.  Without  going  so  far  as 
that,  of  course,  a  man  may  be  intellectually  convinced 
of  the  truth  of  the  doctrine,  and  may  see  that  nothing 
else  is  logically  possible;  but  there  are  very  few  of 
us  who  have  the  strength  to  act  upon  such  a  logical 
conviction  about  things  entirely  beyond  our  ken;  for 


52  THE  INNER  LIFE 

most  of  us  it  is  really  necessary  that  at  least  some  small 
portion  of  the  doctrine,  some  sample  of  it,  as  it  were, 
should  be  definitely  seen  and  known. 

We  who  were  the  earlier  students  felt  all  this  just 
as  keenly  as  do  the  students  of  to-day,  and  when  in 
those  early  days  of  twenty-five  or  twenty-seven  years 
ago  we  asked  Madame  Blavatsky  whether  it  was  in 
any  way  possible  that  we  could  verify  any  of  these 
things  for  ourselves  she  at  once  replied  in  the  affirma- 
tive. She  told  us  that  if  we  chose  to  take  the  trouble 
to  develop  the  requisite  faculties  we  might  unquestion- 
ably experience  for  ourselves  the  truth  of  a  great  deal 
of  the  teaching.  She  warned  us  that  the  way  was  long 
and  arduous,  and  that  no  one  could  tell  beforehand 
how  long  it  would  take  for  a  man  to  tread  it.  But  on 
the  other  hand  she  consoled  us  by  saying  that  the  end 
was  absolutely  certain,  and  that  it  was  impossible  that 
any  man  who  started  to  reach  it  should  fail  to  attain, 
though  in  many  cases  such  attainment  might  lie,  not 
in  this  life,  but  in  some  other  in  the  future. 

This  was  encouraging  in  one  way,  and  yet  somewhat 
daunting  in  another  way;  but  at  any  rate  a  certain 
number  of  us  took  her  at  her  word  and  threw  ourselves 
heart  and  soul  into  the  endeavour  to  live  the  life  which 
was  prescribed  for  us,  and  to  do  the  work  that  lay  be- 
fore us.  The  degrees  of  our  success  were  very  varied, 
but  of  all  of  those  who  made  this  effort  and  persevered 
with  it  I  think  I  may  say  that  there  was  not  one  who 
did  not  obtain  some  result — enough  at  any  rate  to 
show  him  that  what  he  had  been  told  was  true,  and 
that  if  the  progress  which  he  made  was  smaller  than 
he  had  hoped,  the  fault  lay  clearly  with  himself  and  not 
with  the  teachers. 

There  were  those  among  us,  however,  who  succeeded 
in  verifying  for  ourselves  a  large  number  of  the  state- 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  53 

ments  made  by  the  Masters — first  of  all  only  in  a  small 
way,  with  regard  to  ourselves,  our  vehicles,  our  possi- 
bilities, and  with  regard  to  the  astral  life  which  im- 
mediately surrounds  us.  Then  later  on  by  long  contin- 
ued and  more  strenuous  effort  we  developed  the  facul- 
ties of  the  mental  body,  and  began  for  the  first  time 
really  to  understand  what  had  been  written  for  us 
about  the  life  of  the  heaven-world.  All  this  at  first  we 
had  hopelessly  misunderstood,  because  with  the  facul- 
ties then  at  our  disposal  we  were  actually  incapable 
of  comprehending  it.  By  a  strenuous  further  effort  we 
reached  the  faculties  of  the  causal  body,  and  then  the 
world  of  comparative  realities  began  really  to  open 
before  us. 

We  were  able  then  to  read  the  records  of  the  past,  and 
to  see  from  them  with  absolute  certainty  how  the  great 
scheme  of  the  Logos  is  slowly  unfolding  itself  and 
working  itself  out  by  means  of  successive  births  under 
the  guidance  of  the  great  laws  of  evolution  and  cause 
and  effect.  We  could  see  clearly  then  that  we  were 
unquestionably  ourselves  a  part  of  this  great  scheme, 
and  therefore  it  followed  that  it  was  alike  our  duty, 
our  advantage,  our  privilege,  to  throw  ourselves  into 
the  scheme  and  co-operate  intelligently  in  its  fulfill- 
ment. There  was  then  no  doubt  for  us  about  the  fact 
of  the  great  evolution  and  the  future  of  humanity,  for 
it  was  clear  to  us  that  we  had  risen  through  the  lower 
kingdoms,  and  we  could  see  many  stages  both  below  us 
and  above  us ;  all  the  various  stages  of  human  life  ar- 
ranged themselves  for  us  as  steps  upon  a  ladder;  we 
could  see  these  steps  stretching  up  and  down  from  the 
point  which  we  ourselves  occupied,  and  there  were  be- 
ings upon  every  rung  of  that  ladder,  beings  who  were 
clearly  engaged  in  climbing  it. 

The  Masters  who  seemed  to  us  to  stand  at  its  sum- 


54  THE  INNER  LIFE 

mit  assured  us  that  They  were  men  like  ourselves,  and 
that  They  had  passed  through  the  stage  where  we  were 
now  standing;  between  us  and  Them  there  was  no 
break  in  the  continuity,  for  every  step  of  the  ladder 
was  occupied,  and  we  ourselves  watched  the  progress 
of  some  of  those  higher  than  we  from  one  of  these  steps 
to  another.  When  through  custom  the  wonderful  light 
of  the  higher  planes  grew  less  dazzling  to  us,  we  were 
able  to  see  that  even  beyond  the  stupendous  level  occu- 
pied by  the  Masters  there  arose  still  greater  heights. 
Above  Them  stood  Manus,  Christs,  Buddhas,  Lipika, 
great  Devas,  Dhyan  Chohans,  and  many  others  of 
whom  we  can  know  nothing  except  that  They  exist, 
and  that  They,  even  at  Their  ineffable  elevation,  form 
part  of  the  same  mighty  chain. 

The  whole  of  the  past  lies  before  us;  we  know  the 
halting-places  on  the  road,  and  the  side-paths  that 
branch  off  from  it,  and  therefore  we  are  justified  in 
our  confidence  that  where  these  great  ones  now  stand 
we  also  shall  one  day  stand.  Seeing  and  understand- 
ing the  inevitableness  of  our  destiny,  we  also  realize 
that  it  will  be  quite  useless  to  endeavour  to  resist  it. 
Progress  is  the  law  marked  out  for  us.  In  progress 
only  is  our  happiness  and  our  safety.  As  regards  the 
progress  that  lies  before  us  in  this  particular  chain 
of  worlds  the  great  majority  of  us  are  by  no  means 
yet  what  is  technically  called  "safe"  or  "saved."  We 
reach  that  desirable  position  only  when  we  have  be- 
come members  of  the  Great  Brotherhood  which  lasts 
from  eternity  to  eternity,  by  passing  the  first  of  the 
great  initiations,  that  of  the  Sotapatti  or  Srotapanna, 
the  man  who  enters  upon  the  stream. 

To  have  taken  that  step  is  to  have  achieved  the  most 
important  result,  to  have  passed  the  most  critical  point 
in  the  whole  of  human  evolution.     For  in  the  course 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  55 

of  that  evolution  three  points  stand  out  beyond  all 
others.  The  first  is  the  entrance  upon  humanity,  the 
attainment  of  individuality,  the  gaining  of  a  causal 
body,  the  becoming  a  definite  and  apparently  separate 
ego.  To  gain  this  individuality  was  the  aim  of  the 
animal  evolution,  and  its  development  serves  a  very 
definite  purpose.  The  object  is  to  make  a  strong  in- 
dividual centre,  through  which  eventually  the  force  of 
the  Logos  can  be  poured  out.  When  this  centre  is  first 
formed  it  is  only  a  baby  ego,  still  but  weak  and  un- 
certain ;  in  order  that  it  may  become  strong  and  defin- 
ite it  has  to  be  fenced  round  by  the  intense  selfishness 
of  the  savage.  For  many  lives  a  strong  wall  of  sel- 
fishness has  to  be  maintained,  in  order  that  within  it 
the  centre  may  grow  more  and  more  definite. 

We  may  regard  this  selfishness  as  a  kind  of  scaffold- 
ing, which  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  erection  of 
the  building,  but  must  be  destroyed  as  soon  as  the 
building  is  completed,  in  order  that  it  may  be  able  to 
subserve  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  erected.  The 
scaffolding  is  unbeautiful,  and  if  it  were  left  after  the 
building  is  finished  it  would  make  it  uninhabitable, 
and  yet  without  it  the  building  could  not  have  been 
achieved.  The  object  of  the  creation  of  the  centre  is 
that  through  it  the  force  of  the  Logos  should  radiate 
out  upon  the  world,  and  such  radiation  would  be  quite 
impossible  if  the  selfishness  persisted,  and  yet  without 
that  selfishness  a  strong  centre  could  never  have  been 
made.  We  see  therefore  that  this  most  unlovely  of 
qualities  has  its  place  in  evolution.  Now  for  us  its 
work  is  over,  and  we  ought  to  have  got  rid  of  it.  But 
it  is  useless  to  be  angry  with  the  ordinary  man  for 
his  selfishness,  since  it  simply  means  that  what  was 
in  the  savage  a  necessary  virtue  is  still  persisting  into 
the  civilized  condition.    In  point  of  fact  the  selfish  man 


56  THE  INNER  LIFE 

is  an  anachronism,  a  survival  of  prehistoric  savagery. 
He  is  hopelessly  behind  the  times. 

How  then  is  such  a  man  to  make  himself  unselfish, 
to  bring  himself  abreast  of  the  advancing  current  of 
evolution?  The  methods  adopted  by  nature  to  secure 
this  end  are  many  and  various,  but  they  are  all  funda- 
mentally one.  For  what  is  necessary  is  that  the  man 
shall  realize  the  unity  of  all.  And  often  he  does  this 
by  gradually  enlarging  the  self  of  which  he  thinks. 
Instead  of  thinking  of  himself  as  the  unit  he  begins 
to  regard  the  family  as  the  unit  for  which  he  is  work- 
ing, and  within  its  limits  he  gradually  becomes  unsel- 
fish. Presently  he  expands  his  ideas  to  include  the 
tribe  or  clan  to  which  he  belongs,  and  he  learns  to  be 
unselfish  within  its  limits,  while  still  absolutely  selfish 
and  even  predatory  to  all  who  are  outside  it,  whom 
he  usually  regards  as  natural  enemies.  Later  on  in  his 
history  he  extends  his  ideas  so  as  to  include,  in  cer- 
tain respects  at  least,  the  nation  to  which  he  belongs. 

It  is  somewhere  in  the  course  of  that  stage  of  tran- 
sition that  the  majority  of  humanity  stand  at  the  pres- 
ent moment.  In  almost  all  minor  matters  the  ordinary 
man  is  still  fighting  for  his  family  against  the  interests 
of  all  other  families,  but  in  a  few  wider  matters  he 
recognizes  that  his  interests  are  identical  with  those 
of  those  other  families,  and  so  in  those  matters  he  de- 
velops what  he  calls  patriotism  and  national  feeling; 
but  even  in  those  matters  he  is  still  absolutely  selfish 
as  regards  all  those  other  families  who  happen  to  speak 
different  languages  and  to  be  born  in  different  climes. 
At  some  time  in  the  future  the  average  man  will  ex- 
tend his  ideas  of  self  to  include  the  whole  of  humanity, 
and  then  at  last  we  may  say  that  he  has  become  by 
slow  degrees  unselfish. 

While  he  is  thus  learning  to  take  a  wider  view  of  his 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  57 

relation  to  others,  he  is  also  learning  something  with 
regard  to  himself.  First  he  realizes  that  he  is  not  his 
physical  body,  later  that  he  is  not  his  feelings,  and  fur- 
ther on  still  that  he  is  not  even  his  mind.  This  brings 
him  eventually  to  the  realization  that  he  is  the  ego  or 
soul,  and  still  later  on  he  realizes  that  even  that  ego 
is  only  apparently  separate,  and  that  there  is  in  reality 
but  one  transcendant  unity. 

Thus  the  man  treads  the  weary  round  of  the  seven 
hundred  and  seventy-seven  incarnations,  a  time  of  slow 
and  painful  progress  and  of  harrowing  uncertainty, 
but  at  last  after  all  those  struggles  the  uncertainty 
ends  with  that  plunge  into  the  stream  that  makes  the 
man  safe  forever,  and  so  that  is  the  second  and  still 
more  important  point  in  his  evolution.  But  before  he 
can  take  this  step  the  man  must  have  learned  con- 
sciously to  co-operate  with  nature,  he  must  definitely 
have  taken  his  own  evolution  in  hand.  The  knowledge 
of  the  unity  which  makes  him  unselfish  also  makes 
him  desire  to  be  useful,  for  it  gives  him  an  incentive 
to  study  and  to  perfect  himself — a  reason  for  his  ac- 
tions and  a  criterion  by  which  he  can  judge  the  feel- 
ings and  thoughts  within  him,  and  also  the  value  of  all 
with  which  he  comes  into  contact. 

How  then  must  he  begin  this  work  of  perfecting 
himself?  Obviously  he  must  first  pull  up  the  weeds, 
that  is  to  say  he  must  eliminate  one  by  one  the  un- 
desirable qualities  which  he  finds  in  himself;  then  he 
must  seek  the  good  qualities  and  cultivate  them.  He 
must  definitely  set  himself  to  practise  helpfulness,  even 
although  at  first  he  may  be  very  clumsy  in  the  unac- 
customed work.  The  formation  of  character  is  very 
slow  and  tedious  for  him,  for  there  are  many  forces 
arrayed  against  his  efforts,  forces  which  he  himself 
has  made  in  the  past.     He  has  for  many  years  been 


58  THE  INNER  LIFE 

yielding  himself  to  the  sway  of  certain  undesirable 
qualities,  and  so  they  have  gained  a  great  momentum. 

Take  the  case  of  such  a  vice  as  irritability,  for  ex- 
ample. He  has  in  the  past  been  in  the  habit  of  yield- 
ing himself  to  outbursts  of  anger,  and  every  such  out- 
burst makes  it  more  difficult  for  him  to  control  him- 
self on  the  next  occasion;  so  a  strong  habit  has  been 
set  up,  a  vast  amount  of  energy  moving  in  that  direc- 
tion has  been  accumulated.  This  is  stored  up,  not  in 
the  ego  as  an  inherent  quality,  but  in  the  permanent 
astral  atom;  and  when  he  realizes  the  inadvisability 
of  anger  and  sets  himself  against  it  he  has  to  meet  this 
store  of  force  which  he  himself  has  generated  during 
many  past  lives.  Naturally  he  finds  his  task  a  diffi- 
cult one,  and  he  meets  with  many  failures  and  dis- 
couragements ;  but  the  important  thing  for  him  to  bear 
in  mind  is  that  however  many  times  he  may  fail,  vic- 
tory is  absolutely  a  scientific  certainty,  if  only  he  will 
persevere. 

However  great  the  amount  of  force  may  be  which 
he  has  stored  up,  it  must  be  a  finite  amount,  and  every 
effort  which  he  makes  against  it  reduces  it  by  just  so 
much.  But  on  his  side  there  is  a  force  which  is  infin- 
ite; if  only  his  will  is  strong  enough  he  can  go  on,  if 
necessary  through  many  lives,  steadily  renewing  the 
force  for  good  with  which  he  combats  the  evil,  and 
behind  him  in  that  effort  is  the  infinite  force  of  the 
Logos  Himself,  because  that  evolution  is  in  accordance 
with  His  will.  Until  the  man  grasps  the  idea  of  unity 
he  has  no  adequate  motive  for  undertaking  the  hard 
and  distasteful  work  of  character-building,  but  when 
he  has  seen  the  necessity  of  this,  the  reason  for  try- 
ing is  just  as  valid  even  though  he  has  failed  a  thou- 
sand times  as  it  was  in  the  beginning.  No  number 
of  failures  can  daunt  the  man  who  understands  the 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  59 

scheme,  just  because  he  knows  that  however  great  the 
struggle  may  be  the  forces  of  infinity  are  on  his  side, 
and  therefore  in  the  end  he  cannot  fail. 

To  be  certain  of  remembering  this  purpose  of  his 
from  life  to  life  he  should  raise  his  consciousness  to 
the  ego;  but  during  the  stages  when  he  is  as  yet  in- 
capable of  this  he  will  nevertheless  impress  that  pur- 
pose upon  the  permanent  atoms,  and  so  it  will  be  car- 
ried over  with  them  from  life  to  life.  If  the  ego  can 
be  reached,  the  man  will  be  born  with  the  knowledge 
inherent  in  him;  if  he  can  only  impress  the  perma- 
nent atoms,  the  knowledge  will  not  actually  be  born 
with  him  as  part  of  his  stock-in-trade,  but  the  moment 
that  it  comes  before  him  in  any  form  in  his  next  in- 
carnation he  will  immediately  recognize  its  truth,  seize 
upon  it,  and  act  accordingly.  This  steady  practice  of 
virtue  and  this  persistent  increase  of  knowledge  will 
certainly  lead  him  to  the  gate  of  the  probationary  path, 
and  through  that  to  the  great  initiation  of  which  we 
have  spoken. 

After  that  initiation  the  third  point  is  sure  to  fol- 
low— the  gaining  of  the  further  shore  of  that  stream, 
in  the  attainment  of  adeptship,  when  the  man  leaves 
the  merely  human  evolution  and  enters  upon  that  which 
is  superhuman.  We  are  told  that  after  a  man  has  en- 
tered upon  the  stream  it  takes  him  an  average  of  seven 
incarnations  to  reach  the  fourth  step,  that  of  the  arhat, 
the  noble,  the  venerable,  the  perfect.  That  period  is 
more  often  lengthened  than  shortened,  and  the  lives 
are  usually  taken  without  an  intervening  stage  in  the 
heaven-world.  Ordinarily  it  is  only  men  of  this  stage 
who  are  able  thus  to  dispense  with  or  renounce  the  life 
of  the  heaven-world. 

At  the  same  time  those  who  are  so  happy  as  to  be 
chosen  to  take  part  in  the  noble  task  for  which  the 


60  THE  INNER  LIFE 

great  Masters  are  preparing  us,  that  of  working  under 
the  Manu  in  charge  of  the  development  of  the  sixth 
root-race,  will  certainly  need  many  successive  incarna- 
tions without  any  intervening  periods  of  celestial  rest. 
The  possibility  of  this  is  however  conditioned  by  the 
rule  that  a  man  must  have  experienced  celestial  con- 
sciousness before  he  can  renounce  the  heaven-life ;  and 
furthermore  it  is  not  in  the  least  merely  a  question  of 
voluntarily  renouncing  a  reward,  but  of  being  suffi- 
ciently advanced  to  dispense  for  a  time  with  that  part 
of  evolution  which  for  the  majority  comes  most  usually 
in  the  heaven-life. 

When  he  stands  upon  the  step  of  arhatship  half  his 
path  from  the  first  initiation  to  adeptship  may  be  said 
to  have  been  trodden,  for  he  has  then  cast  off  five  of 
the  ten  great  fetters  which  hold  men  back  from  nir- 
vana. Before  him  lies  the  task  of  casting  off  the  re- 
maining five,  and  for  that  also  an  average  of  seven  in- 
carnations is  allowed,  but  it  must  be  understood  that 
this  average  is  in  no  sense  a  rule,  for  many  men  take 
much  longer  than  this,  whereas  others  with  greater  de- 
termination and  perseverance  move  through  these  in- 
itiations in  very  much  less  time.  A  case  has  been 
known  in  which,  by  beginning  very  early  in  life,  and 
by  working  very  hard,  a  man  has  been  able  to  take 
all  four  of  the  great  initiations  in  one  incarnation,  but 
this  is  excessively  rare,  and  not  one  in  ten  thousand 
candidates  could  do  it. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  to  stand  at  the  level  of 
the  arhat  involves  the  power  fully  to  use  the  buddhic 
vehicle,  and  it  will  also  be  remembered  that  when  a 
man  raises  himself  into  his  buddhic  body  the  causal 
body  vanishes,  and  he  is  under  no  compulsion  whatever 
ever  to  re-form  it.  Clearly  therefore  the  seven  lives 
which  remain  to  him  before  he  reaches  the  level  of 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  61 

adeptship  need  not  involve  a  descent  to  the  physical 
plane  at  all,  and  therefore  they  may  not  be  what  we 
ordinarily  mean  by  incarnations.  Nevertheless  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases  they  are  taken  upon  the  physi- 
cal plane,  because  the  man  has  work  to  do  upon  that 
plane  for  the  Great  Brotherhood. 

The  candidate  spends  these  fourteen  lives  in  pass- 
ing through  the  different  stages  of  the  Path  of  Holi- 
ness, and  in  acquiring  all  the  qualifications  which  are 
described  in  detail  in  the  concluding  chapters  of  Invis- 
ible Helpers.  One  who  becomes  a  disciple  of  one  of 
our  Masters  takes  always,  not  the  path  to  selfish  libera- 
tion— the  mere  balancing  of  good  and  evil  karma  and 
the  vanishing  of  all  desire,  so  that  the  man  is  no  longer 
forced  back  into  rebirth — but  the  path  of  renunciation 
in  which,  having  seen  the  scheme  of  the  Logos,  the  man 
throws  himself  into  it  and  lives  only  to  promote  the 
advancement  of  his  fellow-men. 

This  has  been  called  "The  Path  of  Woe"  because  of 
the  constant  self-sacrifice  which  it  involves,  but  in  truth 
this  title  is  somewhat  of  a  misnomer,  because  although 
it  is  true  that  there  is  suffering,  it  is  always  a  suffer- 
ing of  the  lower  and  not  of  the  higher,  and  if  the  man 
should  avoid  such  suffering  by  supineness  or  idleness, 
and  leave  undone  the  work  which  he  might  have  done, 
there  would  assuredly  be  much  greater  suffering  for 
him  at  a  far  higher  level,  in  the  shape  of  remorse. 
Such  suffering  as  is  inevitable  in  this  path  arises  from 
the  fact  that  the  student  is  striving  to  do  here  and  now 
in  the  fourth  round  what  will  be  natural  and  easy  in 
the  seventh  round.  All  our  vehicles  then  will  be  much 
more  developed,  and  even  the  very  material  of  which 
they  are  built  will  be  in  an  entirely  different  condi- 
tion, because  the  physical  atom  will  then  have  all  its 
seven  spirillae  active  instead  of  only  four  of  them. 


62  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Therefore  to  force  our  present  undeveloped  vehicles 
to  do  work  which  will  be  comparatively  easy  for  those 
which  in  millions  of  years  will  be  fully  developed,  in- 
volves a  great  deal  of  strain,  and  this  strain  is  neces- 
sarily productive  of  a  certain  amount  of  suffering. 

It  is  analogous  to  the  suffering  and  privation  which 
is  cheerfully  undergone  by  an  athlete  when  he  puts 
himself  in  training.  If  he  wishes  to  compete  in  some 
great  race  or  trial  of  strength,  he  must  make  his  phy- 
sical body  do  more  than  it  would  naturally  do,  and  deny 
it  many  things  which  it  greatly  likes,  the  absence  of 
which  unquestionably  causes  it  considerable  discom- 
fort, and  perhaps  even  somewhat  of  positive  suffering. 
Yet  for  the  purpose  which  he  has  in  view  the  athlete 
quite  cheerfully  undergoes  this ;  indeed  if,  for  the  sake 
of  avoiding  these  comparatively  slight  temporary  dis- 
comforts, he  should  put  aside  the  opportunity  of  tak- 
ing part  in  the  race  or  contest,  it  is  quite  likely  that 
afterwards  when  he  saw  his  comrades  passing  onward 
to  victory  he  would  feel  a  remorse  for  that  self-indul- 
gence, which  would  involve  keener  suffering  on  a  higher 
plane.  The  analogy  holds  good  in  reference  to  the 
efforts  necessary  to  progress  along  the  path  of  renun- 
ciation ;  the  man  who  fell  aside  from  that  path  because 
of  its  difficulties  and  hardships  would  undoubtedly  suf- 
fer far  more  in  the  long  run  from  remorse  when  he 
saw  those  of  his  fellow-creatures  going  unhelped  whom 
he  might  have  aided,  when  he  saw  misery  among  them 
which  he  knew  that  he  might  have  relieved  if  he  had 
been  less  self-indulgent. 

There  is  never  any  pain  to  the  Self,  but  only  to  these 
lower  vehicles,  when  they  are  being  prematurely 
adapted.  A  good  analogy  may  be  taken  from  the  growth 
of  crabs  and  other  crustaceans.  These  creatures  have 
their  bones  outside  for  protection,  in  the  form  of  a 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  63 

shell,  while  our  bones  are  inside,  in  the  form  of  a  skele- 
ton. A  fatal  objection  to  the  crustacean  scheme  is 
that  when  the  creature  grows  it  has  to  burst  the  shell 
"and  then  wait  for  another  one  to  grow,  which  must  be 
both  a  painful  and  inconvenient  process.  So  in  the 
process  of  our  growth  do  we  make  about  ourselves 
shells  of  thought,  as  though  we  were  mental  crusta- 
ceans. Presently  the  shell  becomes  too  small,  and  then 
we  make  a  long  series  of  efforts  to  crowd  the  new 
growth  inside  it  and  make  it  do  somehow;  but  in  the 
end  this  always  proves  impossible,  and  we  have  pain- 
fully to  burst  it.  This  however  is  inevitable,  so  chafe 
not  at  karma  and  at  nature's  changeless  laws,  for  you 
made  the  shell  yourself  in  the  past,  and  now  you  your- 
self must  break  it.  But  if  you  did  not  go  to  the  incon- 
venience of  breaking  it,  you  would  suffer  far  more  in 
the  unsatisfied  feeling  that  no  progress  had  been  made. 

Many  people  are  afraid  of  change,  especially  of  a 
change  of  faith,  and  this  arises  not  only  from  inherited 
prejudice,  but  also  from  actual  fear  of  doubt — fear 
that  if  one  once  lets  go  one  may  be  unable  to  find  men- 
tal anchorage  anywhere.  Many  a  man  is  quite  unable 
to  make  rational  defence  of  his  belief,  or  to  answer 
the  problems  which  inevitably  arise  in  connection  with 
it,  and  yet  he  is  afraid  to  let  it  go.  Sooner  or  later 
he  will  have  to  let  go,  though  the  widening  out  of  his 
faith  is  sure  to  be  accompanied  by  pain.  Truly  there 
would  be  no  suffering  for  us  if  we  never  broke  our 
shells,  but  then  on  the  other  hand  there  would  be  no 
progress. 

The  life  of  the  disciple  is  full  of  joy — never  doubt  it 
for  an  instant.  But  it  is  not  a  life  of  ease.  The  work 
which  he  has  to  do  is  very  hard,  the  struggle  is  a  very 
real  one.  To  compress  into  a  few  short  lives  the  evo- 
lution of  millions  of  years — the  evolution  for  which  the 


64  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ordinary  process  of  nature  allows  three  rounds  and  a 
half — is  not  a  mere  holiday  task.  Our  President  has 
written :  "Disciples  are  the  crucibles  of  nature,  where- 
in compounds  that  are  mischievous  are  dissociated  and 
are  recombined  into  compounds  that  promote  the  gen- 
eral good." 

It  is  not  necessary  for  any  one  to  become  such  a 
crucible;  perhaps  it  would  be  nearer  the  fact  to  say 
that  to  become  one  is  a  distinction  eagerly  sought  after ; 
nearer  still  to  say  that  when  once  a  man  has  seen  the 
great  sacrifice  of  the  Logos  there  is  no  other  possibility 
for  him  but  to  throw  himself  into  it — to  do  his  tiny 
best  to  share  in  it  and  to  help  it  at  whatever  cost  to 
his  lower  nature.  And  this  is  no  child's  play;  it  does 
indeed  involve  often  a  terrible  strain.  But  an  earn- 
est student  will  be  able  to  realize  that  a  man  may  so 
love  his  work,  and  may  be  so  full  of  joy  in  it,  that  out- 
side of  it  there  can  be  no  pleasure  worth  considering, 
even  though  that  work  may  tax  almost  beyond  bearing 
every  faculty  and  every  vehicle — physical,  astral  or 
mental — which  he  possesses. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  when  humanity  in  gen- 
eral has  this  work  to  do  and  this  evolution  to  accom- 
plish, it  will  be  far  better  fitted  for  the  effort  than  is 
the  man  who  is  trying  now  to  take  a  shorter  and  steeper 
road.  Many  of  his  difficulties  are  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  is  attempting  with  a  set  of  fourth-round  bodies  to 
achieve  the  result  for  the  attainment  of  which  nature 
will  prepare  her  less  adventurous  children  by  supply- 
ing them  in  the  course  of  the  ages  with  the  splendid 
vehicles  of  the  seventh  round.  Of  course  even  to  gain 
those  glorified  vehicles  these  weaker  souls  will  have 
to  do  the  same  work ;  but  when  it  is  spread  over  thou- 
sands of  incarnations  it  naturally  looks  less  formidable. 

Yet  beyond  and  above  all  his  struggle  the  pupil  has 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  65 

ever  an  abiding  joy,  a  peace  and  serenity  that  nothing 
on  earth  can  disturb.  If  he  had  not,  he  would  indeed 
be  a  faithless  servant  of  his  Master,  for  he  would  be 
allowing  the  temporary  strain  on  the  vehicles  to  over- 
bear his  perception  of  the  Self  within;  he  would  be 
identifying  himself  with  the  lower  instead  of  with  the 
higher. 

There  is  therefore  a  certain  element  of  the  ridicu- 
lous in  describing  this  Path  as  one  of  woe,  when  it  is 
clearly  evident  that  there  would  be  much  greater  woe 
for  the  candidate  if  this  Path  were  not  taken.  Indeed, 
to  the  man  who  is  really  doing  his  duty  true  sorrow 
is  unknown  :  "Never  doth  any  who  worketh  righteous- 
ness, 0  beloved,  tread  the  path  of  woe."  (Bhagavad- 
Gita,  vi.  40.) 

This  is  as  regards  the  inner  life  of  the  disciple,  but 
if  one  is  to  consider  the  treatment  which  he  is  likely 
to  receive  on  the  physical  plane,  the  name  of  the  path 
of  woe  is  by  no  means  inappropriate,  at  least  if  he  has 
to  do  any  sort  of  public  work  in  which  he  tries  to  help 
the  world.  Ruysbroek,  the  Flemish  mystic  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  writes  of  those  who  enter  upon  the 
Path:  "Sometimes  these  unhappy  ones  are  deprived 
of  the  good  things  of  earth,  of  their  friends  and  rela- 
tions, and  are  deserted  by  all  creatures ;  their  holiness 
is  mistrusted  and  despised,  men  put  a  bad  construction 
on  all  the  works  of  their  life,  and  they  are  rejected 
and  disdained  by  all  those  who  surround  them;  and 
sometimes  they  are  afflicted  with  divers  diseases."  Re- 
member, too,  how  Madame  Blavatsky  writes :  "Where 
do  we  find  in  history  that  'Messenger'  grand  or  humble, 
an  Initiate  or  Neophyte,  who,  when  he  was  made  the 
bearer  of  some  hitherto  concealed  truth  or  truths,  was 
not  crucified  and  rent  to  shreds  by  the  'dogs'  of  envy, 
malice  and  ignorance?    Such  is  the  terrible  Occult  law ; 


66  THE  INNER  LIFE 

and  he  who  does  not  feel  in  himself  the  heart  of  a  lion 
to  scorn  the  savage  barking,  and  the  soul  of  a  dove 
to  forgive  the  poor  ignorant  fools,  let  him  give  up  the 
Sacred  Science."     {The  Secret  Doctrine,  iii.  90.) 

The  way  in  which  the  world  usually  treats  a  new 
truth  is  first  to  ridicule  it,  then  to  grow  angry  about  it, 
and  then  to  adopt  it  and  pretend  that  it  has  always 
held  that  view.  In  the  meantime  the  first  exponent 
of  the  new  truth  has  probably  been  put  to  death  or  died 
of  a  broken  heart. 

It  is  in  the  course  of  the  training  on  this  Path  that 
the  consciousness  of  the  candidate  passes  through  the 
three  halls  mentioned  in  The  Voice  of  the  Silence.  This 
term  is  used  there  to  indicate  the  three  lower  planes. 
The  first,  that  of  ignorance,  is  the  physical  plane,  upon 
which  we  are  born  to  live  and  die,  and  it  is  very  truly 
described  as  a  Hall  of  Ignorance,  for  all  that  we  know 
in  it  is  the  merest  outside  of  things.  The  second,  the 
Hall  of  learning,  is  the  astral  plane,  which  is  very  truly 
the  place  of  probationary  learning,  for  when  the  astral 
centres  are  opened  we  see  so  much  more  of  everything 
than  we  do  on  the  physical  plane  that  at  first  it  seems 
to  us  that  we  must  indeed  be  seeing  the  whole,  though 
further  development  soon  shows  us  that  this  is  not  so. 

But  The  Voice  of  the  Silence  warns  us  that  beneath 
each  flower  in  this  region,  however  beautiful  it  may 
be,  lies  coiled  the  serpent  of  desire — that  lower  desire 
which  the  aspirant  must  stifle  in  order  that  he  may  de- 
velop in  its  place  the  higher  desire  which  we  call  as- 
piration. In  the  case  of  affection,  for  example,  the 
lower,  the  selfish,  the  grasping  affection  must  be  alto- 
gether transcended,  but  the  high,  pure,  and  unselfish 
affection  can  never  be  transcended,  since  that  is  a  char- 
acteristic of  the  Logos  Himself,  and  a  necessary  quali- 
fication for  progress  upon  the  Path.    What  men  should 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  67 

cast  aside  is  such  love  as  thinks  always  "How  much 
love  can  I  gain?  How  much  does  so  and  so  love  me? 
Does  he  love  me  as  he  loves  some  one  else?"  The  love 
which  we  need  is  that  which  forgets  itself  altogether, 
and  seeks  only  the  occasion  to  pour  itself  out  at  the  feet 
of  the  loved  one. 

The  astral  plane  is  often  called  the  world  of  illusion, 
yet  it  is  at  least  one  stage,  and  a  very  long  stage,  nearer 
to  the  truth  of  things  than  what  we  see  on  the  physical 
plane.  It  often  happens  that  men  are  easily  deluded 
upon  the  astral  plane,  because  they  are  as  yet  much 
in  the  position  of  babies  there,  new-born  infants  with 
no  sense  of  distance  and  no  developed  capacity  for 
locomotion.  We  must  not  forget  that  in  the  normal 
course  of  things  people  very  slowly  awaken  to  the  reali- 
ties of  the  astral  plane,  just  as  a  baby  awakens  to  the 
realities  of  the  physical  plane.  But  those  of  us  who 
are  deliberately  and,  as  it  were,  prematurely  entering 
upon  the  Path  are  developing  such  knowledge  abnor- 
mally, and  are  consequently  more  liable  to  error. 

Danger  and  injury  might  easily  come  in  the  course  of 
our  experiments  but  for  the  fact  that  all  pupils  who 
under  proper  training  are  endeavouring  to  open  these 
faculties  are  assisted  and  guided  by  those  who  are  al- 
ready accustomed  to  the  plane.  That  is  the  reason  for 
the  various  tests  which  are  always  applied  to  one  who 
wishes  to  become  a  worker  on  the  higher  planes ;  that  is 
why  also  all  sorts  of  horrible  sights  are  shown  to  the 
neophyte,  in  order  that  he  may  understand  them  and  be- 
come accustomed  to  them.  If  this  were  not  done,  and 
if  he  came  across  such  a  thing  suddenly,  he  might  re- 
ceive a  shock  which  would  drive  him  back  into  his  phy- 
sical body,  and  this  would  not  only  prevent  his  doing 
any  useful  work,  but  might  also  be  a  positive  danger 
to  that  body.    Where  the  neophyte  is  deluded  on  the 


68  THE  INNER  LIFE 

astral  plane  it  is  his  own  fault,  and  not  that  of  the 
plane,  because  error  is  due  only  to  his  unfamiliarity 
with  the  surroundings. 

The  third  hall  is  the  mental  plane — the  Hall  of  Wis- 
dom. As  soon  as  a  man  is  free  from  attachment  to 
astral  things  he  can  pass  beyond  the  probationary  stage 
of  his  learning,  and  begin  to  acquire  knowledge  which 
is  real  and  definite.  Beyond  that  in  turn  lies  the  im- 
perishable world  of  the  buddhic  plane,  in  which  for 
the  first  time  the  man  learns  the  true  unity  of  all  that 
to  the  lower  vision  seems  to  be  separate. 

It  has  been  said,  "Thou  canst  not  travel  on  the  Path 
before  thou  hast  become  that  Path  itself."  As  long 
as  it  is  but  a  Path  to  us,  and  we  are  following  it  ac- 
cording to  directions  received,  or  because  we  have  seen 
it  and  chosen  it  with  the  intellect  only,  we  have  not 
truly  entered  it  at  all.  This  is  only  a  stage,  leading 
on  to  the  condition  when  you  have  become  yourself  the 
Law  and  the  Path,  and  you  fulfil  its  requirements,  in- 
stinctively doing  the  right  merely  because  it  is  the 
right,  and  because  it  is  inconceivable  that  you  could  do 
anything  else.  Then  only  you  have  become  the 
Path. 

A  man  cannot  climb  if  he  does  not  try;  though  if 
he  does  not  climb  it  is  true  that  he  will  not  fall  far. 
The  strong  man  often  makes  serious  errors;  but  the 
very  force  which  enables  him  to  make  them  also  en- 
ables him  to  make  great  progress  when  he  turns  his 
energies  in  the  right  direction.  Rapid  progress  affects 
the  whole  organism  and  is  a  great  strain  upon  it,  and 
this  inevitably  finds  out  whatever  weak  spots  there  are 
in  the  man.  The  plans  of  the  Hierarchy  will  be  car- 
ried out  whatever  we  may  or  may  not  do,  for  we  are 
but  as  pawns  in  the  mighty  game  which  is  being 
played ;  but  if  we  are  intelligent  pawns,  and  are  will- 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  69 

ing  to  co-operate,  it  gives  much  less  trouble  to  the  au- 
thorities, and  incidentally  to  ourselves. 

And  what  will  be  the  end  of  it  all?  The  attainment 
of  perfection.  Yet  even  that  is  only  relatively  and 
not  absolutely  the  end,  for  when  we  have  reached  in 
fullest  consciousness  the  Logos  of  our  system  and 
have  unified  our  consciousness  with  His,  there  still  re- 
mains the  further  Path  which  leads  us  to  union  with 
still  higher  Powers.  A  great  authority  has  told  us  that 
at  the  end  of  one  of  the  stages  of  evolution  far  beyond 
adeptship  the  perfect  man  will  be  a  decad,  having  a  body 
upon  each  of  the  sub-planes  of  the  lowest  cosmic  plane, 
the  triple  Logos  outside  of  time  and  space  constituting 
his  Self,  and  thus  completing  the  ten.  But  this  con- 
summation can  only  be  reached  when  the  man  has 
power  to  create  a  body  for  himself  upon  each  of  these 
planes. 

We  have  been  led  to  understand  that  of  the  total 
number  of  egos  which  are  engaged  in  this  evolution 
about  one-fifth  will  fully  succeed — that  is  to  say  will 
succeed  in  attaining  the  asekha  level  before  the  end  of 
the  seventh  round.  Another  fifth  will  by  that  time, 
have  gained  the  arhat  level,  and  about  an  equal  num- 
ber will  be  on  the  lower  stages  of  the  Path,  while  a 
number  roughly  stated  as  the  remaining  two-fifths 
will  have  dropped  out  of  this  evolution  altogether 
at  the  critical  period  at  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
round. 

All  those  who  have  not  fully  attained  the  goal,  and 
completed  their  evolution,  will  have  to  resume  it  upon 
the  next  chain  of  globes,  and  even  those  who  are  the 
failures  of  the  fifth  round  will  be  successes  in  the  next 
chain.  In  the  same  way  it  is  not  improbable  that  some 
of  those  who  are  adepts  and  Masters  now  may  have 
been  among  the  failures  of  the  moon-chain — that  is  to 


70  THE  INNER  LIFE 

say,  that  They  belonged  to  the  humanity  of  that  chain, 
but  were  somewhat  backward  upon  it,  and  so  dropped 
out  there,  and  came  on  in  the  fore-front  of  this  later 
evolution,  exactly  as  a  boy  who  failed  to  pass  an  exam- 
ination one  year  would  be  likely  to  be  among  the  first 
of  his  class  when  he  tries  the  same  examination  again 
twelve  months  later. 

Remember  that  we  are  now  only  just  past  the  mid- 
dle of  an  evolutionary  period,  and  that  is  why  so  very 
few  people  comparatively  have  as  yet  attained  adept- 
ship,  just  as  very  few  boys  in  a  class  would  be  already 
fit  to  pass  the  final  examination  of  the  year  after  only 
six  months  of  study.  In  precisely  the  same  way  very 
few  animals  are  as  yet  attaining  individuality,  for  the 
animal  who  attains  individuality  is  as  far  in  advance 
of  his  fellows  as  is  the  human  being  who  attains  adept- 
ship  in  advance  of  the  average  man.  Both  are  doing 
at  the  middle  point  of  evolution  what  they  are  ex- 
pected to  be  able  to  do  only  at  the  end  of  it.  Those  who 
achieve  only  at  the  normal  time,  at  the  end  of  the  sev- 
enth round,  will  approach  their  goal  so  gradually  that 
there  will  be  little  or  no  struggle. 

Undoubtedly  to  attain  in  that  way  is  very  far  easier 
for  the  candidate.  But  that  method  has  the  tremen- 
dous drawback  that  the  man  who  attains  by  it  will  not 
have  been  able  to  give  any  help  to  others,  but  will  on 
the  contrary  have  required  assistance  himself.  I  re- 
member from  the  days  of  my  childhood  a  Christian 
hymn  which  gave  this  idea  very  beautifully.  It  de- 
scribed how  a  certain  soul  went  to  heaven  and  enjoyed 
its  bliss,  and  wandered  about  there  very  happily  for 
a  time,  but  at  last  he  noticed  that  the  crown  which 
he  wore  differed  much  in  splendor  from  many  of  the 
others,  and  for  a  long  time  he  wondered  why  this  was 
so.    At  last  he  met  the  Christ  Himself  and  mustered 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS  71 

up  courage  to  ask  Him  the  reason  of  this  peculiarity; 
and  the  answer  given  ran  thus: 

I  know  thou  hast  believed  on  Me, 

And  Life  through  Me  is  thine ; 
But  where  are  all  those  glorious  gems 

That  in  thy  crown  should  shine? 
Thou  seest  yonder  glorious  throng 

With  stars  on  every  brow, 
For  every  soul  they  led  to  Me 

They  wear  a  jewel  now. 

"They  that  are  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of 
the  firmament,  but  they  that  turn  many  to  righteous- 
ness as  the  stars  for  ever  and  ever." 

When  we  are  struggling  onwards  ourselves  we  can 
help  others,  and  we  should  do  all  that  we  can  in  this 
direction,  not  because  of  the  result  to  ourselves  (though 
that  is  inevitable)  but  for  the  sake  of  helping  the  world. 
The  man  who  drifts  with  the  stream  has  to  be  carried 
along,  but  when  he  begins  to  swim  himself  he  sets  free 
the  force  that  would  otherwise  have  been  spent  in  help- 
ing him.  That  can  then  be  used  for  the  helping  of 
others,  quite  independently  of  what  he  himself  may 
do  in  that  line. 

Adeptship  sets  the  man  free  from  the  necessity  of 
rebirth,  and  its  achievement  also  involves  the  libera- 
tion of  forces  for  the  aid  of  others.  The  man  who  seeks 
liberation  only  for  himself  may  balance  his  karma  per- 
fectly and  may  kill  out  desire,  so  that  the  law  of  karma 
will  not  longer  compel  him  to  rebirth.  But  though  he 
thus  avoids  the  action  of  the  law  of  karma  he  does 
not  escape  from  the  law  of  evolution.  It  may  be  long 
before  he  comes  under  the  influence  of  that  law,  be- 
cause by  the  hypothesis  a  man  who  has  already  at  this 
stage  set  himself  free  from  all  desire  must  be  consid- 


72  THE  INNER  LIFE 

erably  in  advance  of  the  average.  There  will  however 
inevitably  come  a  time  when  the  slow  and  steady  ad- 
vance of  the  law  of  evolution  will  overtake  him,  and 
then  its  resistless  pressure  will  force  him  out  of  his 
selfish  bliss  into  rebirth  once  more,  and  so  he  will  find 
himself  again  upon  the  wheel  from  which  he  had  hoped 
to  escape. 

It  has  often  been  asked  how  the  secrets  revealed  at 
initiation  are  protected  from  those  who  are  able  to  read 
thoughts.  There  is  not  the  slightest  danger  that  any 
of  these  secrets  will  ever  be  disclosed  in  this  manner, 
for  at  the  same  time  that  the  secret  is  told  to  the  in- 
itiate the  means  by  which  he  can  guard  it  is  also  ex- 
plained to  him.  If  it  could  be  possible  that  an  initiate 
could  ever  be  so  false  as  to  think  of  betraying  what 
has  been  confided  to  him,  even  then  there  would  be  no 
danger,  for  he  is  in  such  close  touch  with  the  Brother- 
hood of  which  he  is  a  part  that  they  would  at  once  know 
of  his  foul  intention,  and  before  he  could  speak  the 
treacherous  words  he  would  have  forgotten  utterly  that 
there  was  anything  to  betray.  There  is  nothing  that 
is  in  any  way  terrible  about  these  secrets,  except  that 
the  power  which  goes  with  them  might  well  be  ter- 
rible if  wrongly  used.  Initiates  always  know  one  an- 
other, much  in  the  same  way  as  free-masons  do;  and, 
just  as  with  the  latter,  any  initiate  could  hide  his  status 
from  those  below  him,  but  not  from  those  above  him. 

However  sorely  the  Brotherhood  may  be  in  need  of 
helpers  no  man  can  receive  initiation  until  his  char- 
acter is  developed  to  a  stage  when  he  is  ready  for  it, 
and  in  exactly  the  same  way  if  a  man  has  raised  him- 
self to  the  level  of  initiation  there  is  no  power  which 
can  withhold  it  from  him.  It  may  very  often  happen, 
however,  that  a  man  is  ready  in  every  respect,  save 
for  a  lack  of  some  one  quality ;  and  that  lack  may  hold 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  73 

him  back  for  a  very  long  time,  which  would  probably 
mean  that  by  the  time  he  acquired  the  missing  quality 
he  would  in  all  other  respects  be  developed  in  advance 
of  the  requirements.  So  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
all  initiates  standing  upon  the  same  level  are  invari- 
ably equal  in  all  respects.  What  the  world  calls  a 
great  man  is  not  necessarily  developed  all  round  and 
fit  for  initiation.  Anything  in  the  nature  of  favour- 
itism or  neglect  is  utterly  inconceivable.  In  this  mat- 
ter no  man  can  give  to  another  that  which  he  has  not 
earned,  nor  can  any  man  withhold  the  due  recognition 
of  development  won. 


The  Ancient  Mysteries 

What  I  can  tell  you  with  regard  to  the  ancient  mys- 
teries is  not  derived  from  any  special  study  of  old 
manuscripts,  or  of  the  history  of  this  subject.  It  hap- 
pened to  me  in  another  life  to  be  born  in  ancient 
Greece,  and  to  become  initiated  there  into  some  of  the 
mysteries.  Now  a  man  who  was  initiated  in  this  way 
in  Greece  gave  a  pledge  not  to  reveal  what  he  had  seen, 
and  this  pledge  is  binding,  even  though  it  was  given 
in  a  former  incarnation ;  but  Those  who  stood  behind 
those  mysteries  have  since  thought  fit  to  give  out  to 
the  world  much  of  what  was  then  taught  only  under 
the  vow  of  secrecy,  and  so  They  have  relieved  us  from 
our  promise  as  far  as  those  teachings  go.  Therefore 
I  break  no  pledge  when  I  tell  you  something  about  the 
instructions  which  were  given  in  those  ancient  mys- 
teries. Other  subjects  were  taught,  however,  which  I 
am  not  at  liberty  to  name,  because  they  have  not  yet 
been  made  public  by  the  Great  Ones. 


74  THE  INNER  LIFE 

In  the  first  place,  I  should  like  to  ask  you  to  notice 
that  all  peoples  and  all  religions  have  had  their  mys- 
teries, including  the  Christian  religion.  I  have  often 
heard  people  say  that  in  the  Christian  religion,  at  least, 
nothing  was  hidden :  that  everything  was  open  for  the 
study  of  the  poor  and  the  unlearned.  Any  one  who 
says  that  does  not  know  the  history  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Now,  indeed,  everything  the  Church  knows 
is  given  out,  but  that  is  only  because  it  has  forgotten 
the  mysteries  which  it  used  to  keep  hidden.  If  you 
study  the  earliest  history  of  the  Church,  you  will  find 
that  old  writers  speak  very  distinctly  of  the  mysteries, 
which  were  taught  only  to  those  who  were  full  mem- 
bers of  the  Church.  There  were  many  points  on  which 
nothing  was  said  to  those  who  were  only  "katechou- 
menoi,"  who  had  just  entered  the  Church,  but  were 
still  candidates  for  full  membership. 

Traces  of  this  we  can  find  still  earlier,  for  you  will 
remember  that  it  is  said  in  the  Gospels  that  the  Christ 
made  known  to  His  disciples  many  things  which  He 
gave  to  the  multitude  only  in  parables. 

But  one  of  the  reasons  of  the  failure  of  the  Christian 
Church  to  control  her  more  intellectual  sons,  as  she 
should  have  done,  is  the  fact  that  she  has  forgotten 
and  lost  the  supernatural  and  philosophical  mysteries 
which  were  the  basis  of  her  dogma.  To  see  something 
of  this  hidden  side  of  her  teachings  you  have  only  to 
read  the  works  of  the  great  Gnostic  writers.  Then  you 
will  find  that  when  we  take  this  side  as  the  inner  doc- 
trine for  the  scholars,  and  the  present  form  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  the  outer  doctrine  for  the  illiter- 
ate, we  get  in  the  two  combined  a  perfect  expression 
of  the  ancient  Wisdom.  But  to  take  either  of  these 
teachings  by  itself,  and  to  condemn  the  other  as  heresy, 
gives  us  only  a  one-sided  view.     So  every  religion  has 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  75 

instruction  for  those  who  do  not  get  beyond  its  outer 
form,  but  has  always  also  higher  instruction  for  those 
who  penetrate  to  the  inner. 

However,  when  we  speak  of  the  ancient  mysteries, 
we  generally  mean  those  which  were  connected  with 
the  great  religion  of  ancient  Greece.  Only  a  few  books 
exist  on  this  subject.  There  is  a  book  of  Iamblichus, 
who  was  himself  initiated  into  the  mysteries,  and  there 
is  a  book  written  by  a  countryman  of  mine,  Thomas 
Taylor,  a  Platonist,  and  also  one  by  a  Frenchman,  Mon- 
sieur P.  Foucart.  Although  they  are  very  interest- 
ing, you  will  find  that  they  give  but  little  real  informa- 
tion. Much  that  we  think  we  know  about  the  mys- 
teries (I  mean  from  an  external  point  of  view)  comes 
to  us  through  the  writings  of  their  exponents. 

The  Christian  Church  has  had  the  habit — probably 
justifiable  from  her  point  of  view — of  destroying  all 
books  which  stood  for  teachings  other  than  her  own, 
and  we  must  not  forget  that  almost  all  of  our  knowl- 
edge with  regard  to  early  Christian  times  comes  to  us 
through  the  hands  of  the  monks  of  the  middle  ages. 
They  were  practically  the  only  educated  people  of  that 
time,  and  it  was  they  who  copied  all  the  manuscripts. 
They  had  very  pronounced  opinions  about  what  was 
useful  and  what  was  not;  so  very  naturally  only  that 
part  survived  which  agreed  with  their  views,  this  be- 
ing reported  with  emphasis,  while  anything  of  oppo- 
site character  wTas  discarded.  Above  all,  the  greater 
part  of  the  knowledge  which  is  accessible  to  the  general 
wrorld  about  the  mysteries  is  found  in  the  works  of  the 
Church  Fathers,  who  were  opposed  to  them.  Without 
wishing  to  accuse  the  Fathers  of  having  purposely  mis- 
represented, we  may  certainly  conclude  that  they  tried 
to  put  forward  their  own  view  in  the  best  and  strong- 
est light.     Even  at  the  present  day  if  you  wished  to 


76  THE  INNER  LIFE 

know  the  whole  truth  concerning  the  doctrine  of  some 
Protestant  sect,  you  would  not  go  to  Catholic  priests 
for  information;  nor,  if  you  wanted  good  and  just  ex- 
planations concerning  Catholicism,  would  you  go  to  the 
Salvation  Army  to  get  them. 

In  regard  to  the  mysteries  we  are  in  a  similar  situa- 
tion, only  much  worse,  because  of  the  many  and  bitter 
disputes  between  the  followers  of  the  old  religion  and 
its  mysteries  and  the  Fathers  of  the  Christian  Church. 
Therefore  we  may  accept  only  with  considerable  re- 
serve and  with  great  prudence  what  the  Fathers  say 
in  regard  to  this  subject.  For  example,  you  will  find 
that  they  often  maintain  that  the  ancient  mysteries 
contain  much  that  is  indecent  and  immoral. 

Because  I  have  carefully  searched  clairvoyantly 
through  the  mysteries  of  Greece,  and  in  a  former  in- 
carnation was  myself  an  initiate  of  them,  I  can  say 
with  perfect  certainty  that  there  is  not  even  a  shadow 
of  truth  in  those  statements.  There  did  exist  certain 
mysteries  with  which  were  festivities  and  a  form  of 
Bacchus-worship,  which  degenerated  later  on  into 
something  very  objectionable;  but  this  was  only  in 
later  times,  and  those  mysteries  belonged  to  quite  an- 
other branch.  They  were  not  in  the  least  related  to 
the  mysteries  of  Eleusis,  but  were  only  an  imitation  of 
them  on  a  small  scale,  entirely  exoteric. 

I  have,  this  evening,  to  treat  a  very  extensive  sub- 
ject in  a  short  time.  I  must  try  to  give  you  a  rough 
sketch  of  what  those  Greek  mysteries  were  and  what 
was  taught  to  the  initiates. 

The  fact  will  be  known  to  you  that  two  divisions  are 
always  mentioned :  the  lesser  and  the  greater  mys- 
teries. Everybody  knew  that  those  existed,  and  the 
number  of  persons  who  were  initiated  was  indeed  quite 
a  large  proportion  of  the  whole  population.     I  think 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  77 

you  may  read  in  exoteric  books  of  thirty  thousand  in- 
itiates gathering  at  one  time,  and  this  also  shows  that 
the  fact  that  a  man  was  initiated  need  not  be  kept  se- 
cret, but  that  the  outer  world  knew  him  as  belonging 
to  this  numerous  class.  I  mean  that,  although  cer- 
tain teachings  given  in  the  mysteries  were  always  kept 
secret,  the  whole  Greek  and  Roman  world  knew  that 
the  greater  and  lesser  mysteries  existed,  and  more  or 
less  who  belonged  to  each  of  them. 

But  behind  those  two  degrees,  the  existence  of  which 
was  generally  known,  there  were  all  the  time  the  real 
secret  mysteries ;  and  the  existence  of  the  third  degree, 
as  one  might  call  it,  was  unknown  to  the  public.  If  one 
thinks  of  the  conditions  of  that  time  one  can  readily 
understand  the  reason  for  this.  Most  of  the  Roman 
Emperors,  for  example,  knew  of  the  existence  of  the 
lesser  and  greater  mysteries,  and  insisted  upon  being 
initiated.  Now  we  know  very  well  from  history  that 
many  of  the  Roman  Emperors  were  hardly  of  the  char- 
acter to  be  allowed  to  play  a  leading  role  in  a  religious 
body.  But,  all  the  same,  it  would  have  been  very  diffi- 
cult for  the  leaders  of  the  mysteries  to  refuse  entrance 
to  an  Emperor  of  Rome.  As  was  once  said,  one  cannot 
argue  with  the  master  of  thirty  legions.  The  emperors 
would  certainly  have  killed  anyone  who  stood  in  the 
way  of  anything  they  wished.  Thus  it  was  desirable 
that  the  existence  of  the  third  degree  should  not  be 
known,  and  nobody  knew  that  there  was  such  a  degree 
before  he  was  deemed,  by  those  who  could  judge, 
worthy  to  be  admitted  to  it. 

The  teachings  of  this  third  degree  were  never  given 
to  the  public  and  never  will  be.  But  in  the  common 
mysteries,  lesser  and  greater,  are  many  things  which 
can  be  told.  In  the  first  place,  then,  we  were  taught 
certain  pithy  sayings,  or  apophthegms,  and  if  I  quote 


78  THE  INNER  LIFE 

you  some  of  those  you  will  understand  the  nature  of 
the  teaching.  One  of  the  best  known  was  "Death  is 
life,  and  life  is  death."  This  shows  us  that  the  higher 
life  on  the  other  side  of  death  was  well  known.  An- 
other saying  was  "He  who  seeks  realities  in  this  life 
shall  also  seek  realities  after  death;  and  he  who  seeks 
unrealities  in  this  life  shall  also  seek  unrealities  after 
death."  A  great  principle  of  their  teaching  was  that 
the  soul  had  descended .  from  the  higher  spheres  to 
the  material.  The  principles  of  reincarnation  were 
also  contained  in  their  instruction.  You  will  remem- 
ber that  this  did  not  appear  in  the  external  doctrine 
of  the  religions  either  of  Greece  or  of  Rome — that  is 
to  say,  it  was  not  taught  publicly  and  in  so  many  words 
— but  you  will  find  that  this  idea  of  the  descent  of  the 
soul  into  matter  is  imparted  in  classic  mythology.  You 
will  remember  the  myth  of  Proserpina,  who  was  car- 
ried to  the  under-world  while  picking  the  flower  of 
the  narcissus. 

Let  us  recall  the  myth  of  Narcissus.  He  was  a  youth 
of  great  beauty  who  fell  in  love  with  his  own  image 
reflected  in  the  water,  and  was  therefore  changed  into 
a  flower  and  bound  to  earth.  You  need  not  have  studied 
much  Theosophy  to  see  what  that  means.  We  learn 
in  The  Secret  Doctrine  how  the  Ego  looks  down  upon 
the  waters  of  the  astral  plane  and  the  lower  world, 
how  it  reflects  itself  in  the  personality,  how  it  identi- 
fies itself  with  the  personality  and,  falling  in  love  with 
its  image,  is  bound  to  earth.  So  Proserpina,  while 
picking  the  narcissus,  is  dragged  away  to  the  under- 
world, and  afterwards  passes  half  her  life  under  the 
earth  and  half  on  the  earth;  that  is,  as  you  will  see, 
half  in  a  material  body  and  half  out  of  it. 

In  the  same  way,  there  are  numbers  of  other  myths 
of  which  it  is  very  interesting  to  hear  the  Theosophical 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  79 

explanation.  For  example,  in  this  old  mystery-teach- 
ing the  minotaur  was  held  to  signify  the  lower  nature 
in  man — the  personality  which  is  half  man  and  half 
animal.  This  was  eventually  slain  by  Theseus,  who 
typifies  the  higher  self  or  the  individuality,  which  has 
been  gradually  growing  and  gathering  strength  until 
at  last  it  can  wield  the  sword  of  its  Divine  Father,  the 
Spirit.  Guided  through  the  labyrinth  of  illusion  which 
constitutes  these  lower  planes  by  the  thread  of  occult 
knowledge  given  him  by  Ariadne  (who  represents  in- 
tuition) the  higher  self  is  enabled  to  slay  the  lower, 
and  to  escape  safely  from  the  web  of  illusion ;  yet  there 
still  remains  for  him  the  danger  that,  developing  in- 
tellectual pride,  he  may  neglect  intuition,  even  as  The- 
seus neglected  Ariadne,  and  so  fail  for  this  time  to  real- 
ize his  highest  possibilities. 

In  ancient  Greece  the  lesser  mysteries  were  espe- 
cially celebrated  in  a  little  place  called  Agrae,  and  the 
initiates  were  called  "mystae."  Perhaps  you  know  that 
their  official  dress,  the  token  of  their  dignity,  was  the 
skin  of  a  fawn,  which  in  the  old  symbology  represented 
the  astral  body. 

Its  spotted  appearance  was  thought  to  be  emblematic 
of  the  many  colours  in  an  ordinary  astral  body.  The 
reason  why  this  was  considered  a  fitting  dress  for  those 
initiated  into  the  lesser  mysteries  was  because  the  prin- 
cipal teachings  given  in  them  concerned  the  astral 
plane.  Those  who  were  admitted  learned  what  the 
astral  life  of  man  would  be  after  death. 

Much  time  was  spent  in  making  clear  by  example 
as  well  as  by  teaching  what  would  be  the  effect  in  the 
astral  world  of  a  certain  mode  of  life  on  earth.  In  the 
first  place  they  taught  by  illustrations,  on  an  extensive 
scale  by  representations  in  the  temples,  by  a  kind  of 
play  or  drama  in  which  was  shown  what,  in  the  astral 


80  THE  INNER  LIFE 

world,  would  be  the  condition  of  a  man  who  had  been, 
let  us  say,  avaricious  or  full  of  sensual  desires.  In  the 
old  days  of  the  mysteries,  when  the  leaders  were  adepts 
or  pupils  of  adepts,  these  representations  were  some- 
thing like  materializations.  That  is  to  say,  the  teacher, 
whoever  he  was,  produced  them  by  his  own  power  out 
of  astral  or  etheric  matter,  and  created  a  real  image  for 
his  pupils.  But  as  time  advanced,  and  later  teachers 
were  unable  to  bring  about  this  phenomenon,  they  tried 
to  represent  these  teachings  in  other  ways — in  some 
cases  by  what  we  should  call  acting.  Members  of  the 
priesthood  took  the  roles  of  different  persons,  while 
in  other  cases  puppets  were  moved  by  machinery. 

In  addition  to  the  teaching  concerning  the  astral 
plane,  instructions  were  also  given  in  the  same  way  as 
to  the  system  of  world-evolution.  Among  other  things, 
pupils  were  taught  how  our  solar  system  and  its  dif- 
ferent parts  came  into  existence.  You  can  easily  see 
how  that  could  be  represented,  first  by  materialized 
nebulae  and  globes,  and  how,  when  this  materialization 
was  no  longer  possible,  the  arrangement  of  different 
globes  could  be  made  clear  by  the  use  of  what  we  now 
call  an  orrery — that  is,  a  model  of  the  solar  system. 

One  of  the  most  important  things  connected  with  the 
mysteries  was  that  they  explained  the  outer  religion 
of  the  people  in  quite  another  way  than  that  given  to 
the  general  public.  If  you  know  anything  about  the 
religion  of  ancient  Greece,  you  will  understand  that 
there  were  many  things  which  badly  needed  some  inner 
explanation,  for  certainly  their  religion  does  not  ap- 
pear to  be  very  elevated  or  very  reasonable  when  looked 
at  from  the  ordinary  standpoint.  It  seems  to  have 
been  the  object  that  all  the  stories  which  made  up  the 
outer  teaching,  many  of  which  seem  very  extraor- 
dinary, should  be  learnt  by  the  people  and  retained  in 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  81 

their  minds — just  a  few  simple,  clear  conceptions,  and 
nothing  more.  But  all  earnestminded  people  joined  the 
mysteries,  and  learnt  there  the  real  meaning  of  the 
stories,  which  gave  the  whole  thing  quite  another 
aspect. 

Let  me  give  you  an  idea  of  what  I  mean,  by  two  or 
three  very  simple  and  short  examples.  I  told  you  that, 
for  the  most  part,  the  aim  of  those  lesser  mysteries 
was  to  inform  the  pupils  about  the  effects  on  the  astral 
plane  of  a  certain  mode  of  life  here  on  earth.  You 
probably  know  the  myth  of  Tantalus.  He  was  a  man 
condemned  to  suffer  in  hell  eternal  thirst,  while  water 
surrounded  him  on  all  sides,  but  receded  from  his  lips 
as  soon  as  he  tried  to  drink.  The  meaning  of  this 
is  not  difficult  to  see,  when  once  we  know  what  the 
astral  life  is.  Every  one  who  leaves  this  world  of  ours 
full  of  sensual  desires  of  any  kind — as,  for  example,  a 
drunkard,  or  some  one  who  has  given  himself  up  to 
sensual  living  in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word — 
such  a  man  finds  himself  on  the  astral  plane  in  the 
position  of  Tantalus. 

He  has  built  up  for  himself  this  terrible  desire  which 
governs  his  whole  being.  You  know  how  powerful  the 
desire  can  be  in  the  case  of  a  drunkard ;  it  conquers  his 
feelings  of  honor,  his  love  of  his  family,  and  all  the 
better  inclinations  of  his  character.  He  will  take 
money  from  his  wife  and  children,  will  even  take  their 
clothes  to  sell  them  and  obtain  money  to  drink. 

Remember  that  when  a  man  dies  he  does  not  change 
at  all.  His  desire  is  still  as  powerful  as  ever.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  gratify  it,  because  his  physical  body, 
through  which  only  he  could  drink,  is  gone.  There  you 
have  your  Tantalus,  as  you  see,  full  of  that  terrible 
desire,  always  finding  that  the  gratification  recedes  as 
soon  as  he  thinks  he  has  it. 


82  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Recall  also  the  story  of  Tityus,  the  man  who  was 
tied  to  a  rock,  his  liver  being  gnawed  by  vultures,  and 
growing  again  as  fast  as  it  was  eaten.  There  you  have 
an  illustration  of  the  effect  of  yielding  to  desire:  an 
image  of  the  man  who  is  always  tortured  by  remorse 
for  sins  committed  on  earth. 

As  perhaps  a  higher  example  of  the  same  we  can  take 
the  story  of  Sisyphus.  You  know  how  he  was  con- 
demned always  to  roll  a  stone  up  a  hill,  and  how,  when 
he  reached  the  top,  the  stone  would  always  roll  down 
again.  That  is  the  condition  of  an  ambitious  man  after 
death,  a  man  who  has  spent  his  life  in  making  plans  for 
selfish  ends,  for  attaining  glory  or  honor.  In  his  case 
also  death  brings  no  change.  He  goes  on  making  plans 
just  as  he  did  during  life.  He  works  out  his  plans, 
he  executes  them,  as  he  thinks,  till  the  point  of  culmina- 
tion, and  then  he  suddenly  perceives  that  he  has  no 
longer  a  physical  body,  and  that  all  was  but  a  dream. 
Then  he  begins  again  and  again,  till  he  has  learnt  at 
last  that  these  desires  are  useless  and  that  ambition 
must  be  killed.  So  Sisyphus  goes  on  uselessly  rolling 
the  stone  up  the  hill,  till  at  last  he  learns  not  to  roll  it 
any  more.  To  have  learnt  that  is  to  have  conquered 
that  desire,  and  he  will  come  back  in  his  next  life  with- 
out it;  without  the  desire,  but  of  course  not  without 
the  weakness  of  character  which  made  that  desire 
possible. 

So  you  see  that  conditions  that  seem  terrible  are  but 
the  effects  in  the  other  world  of  a  wrong  life  here  on 
earth.  That  is  nature's  method  of  turning  wrong  into 
good.  Man  does  suffer,  but  what  he  suffers  is  only  the 
effect  of  his  own  action  and  nothing  else ;  it  is  not  pun- 
ishment inflicted  upon  him  from  outside,  but  entirely 
of  his  own  making.  And  that  is  not  all.  The  suffering 
he  has  to  bear  is  the  only  means  by  which  his  qualities 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  83 

can  be  directed  in  the  right  way  for  his  evolution  and 
progress  in  another  life.  This  was  a  point  much  em- 
phasized in  the  teaching  of  the  mysteries. 

Now  in  regard  to  the  greater  mysteries.  Those  were 
celebrated  principally  in  the  great  temple  of  Eleusis, 
not  far  from  Athens.  The  initiates  were  named 
"epoptai,"  that  is,  "they  whose  eyes  are  opened."  Their 
emblem  was  the  golden  fleece  of  Jason  which  is  the 
symbol  of  the  mind-body;  for  the  yellow  colour  in  the 
human  aura  indicates  the  intelligence,  as  every  clair- 
voyant knows.  In  this  degree  of  initiation  the  teach- 
ings of  the  former  degree  were  continued.  In  the  first, 
as  you  remember,  were  taught  the  effects  in  the  astral 
world  of  various  ways  of  living.  In  the  greater  mys- 
teries the  pupil  was  shown  what  would  be  the  effect  in 
the  heaven-world  of  a  certain  line  of  life,  study  and 
aspiration  on  earth.  The  whole  history  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  world  and  of  man,  in  its  deeper  aspect,  v/as 
expounded  in  the  greater  mysteries.  The  same  method 
of  representation  as  in  the  other  case  was  used  here ; 
although  it  was  much  more  difficult  to  represent  on  the 
physical  plane  what  belonged  to  the  mental. 

In  each  of  these  divisions  of  the  mysteries,  the  lesser 
and  the  greater,  there  was  an  inner  school  which 
taught  practical  development  to  those  who  were  seen 
to  be  ready  for  it.  In  the  lesser  mysteries  theoretical 
knowledge  about  the  astral  plane  was  given,  but  the 
teachers  carefully  watched  their  pupils,  and  when  they 
noticed  one  of  whose  character  they  felt  sure,  who 
showed  that  he  was  capable  of  psychic  development, 
they  invited  him  into  the  inner  circle  in  which  instruc- 
tion was  given  as  to  the  method  of  using  the  astral 
body  and  consciously  functioning  in  it.  When  such  a 
man  passed  on  to  the  greater  mysteries  he  received  not 
only  the  ordinary  teaching  about  the  conditions  of  the 


84  THE  INNER  LIFE 

mental  plane,  but  also  private  instruction  as  to  the 
development  of  the  mental  body  as  a  vehicle. 

Those  who  were  thus  received,  not  only  into  the 
recognized  stages  of  the  mysteries  but  into  their  inner 
schools,  were  also  taught  at  the  end  of  their  course  that 
all  of  this  was  in  truth  but  exoteric — that  all  which 
they  had  learnt,  incalculable  as  had  been  its  value,  was 
really  only  a  preparation  for  the  true  mysteries  of  initi- 
ation which  would  lead  them  to  the  feet  of  the  Masters 
of  Wisdom,  and  admit  them  to  the  Great  Brotherhood 
which  rules  the  world. 

I  may  explain  still  further  the  meaning  of  some  of 
those  symbols  which  were  used  in  connection  with  the 
mysteries.  First,  we  will  take  what  was  called  the 
thyrsus — that  is,  a  staff  with  a  pine-cone  on  its  top.  In 
India  the  same  symbol  is  found,  but  instead  of  the 
staff  a  stick  of  bamboo  with  seven  knots  is  used.  In 
some  modifications  of  the  mysteries,  a  hollow  iron  rod, 
said  to  contain  fire,  was  used  instead  of  the  thyrsus. 
Here  again  it  is  not  difficult  for  the  student  of  occultism 
to  see  the  meaning.  The  staff  or  the  stick  with  seven 
knots  represents  the  spinal  cord,  with  its  seven  centres, 
of  which  we  read  in  the  Hindu  books.  The  hidden  fire 
is  the  serpent-fire,  kundalini,  of  which  you  may  read 
in  The  Secret  Doctrine.  But  the  thyrsus  was  not  only 
a  symbol ;  it  was  also  an  object  of  practical  use.  It  was 
a  very  strong  magnetic  instrument,  used  by  initiates  to 
free  the  astral  body  from  the  physical  when  they  passed 
in  full  consciousness  to  this  higher  life.  The  priest 
who  had  magnetized  it  laid  it  against  the  spinal  cord  of 
the  candidate  and  gave  him  in  that  way  some  of  his 
own  magnetism,  to  help  him  in  that  difficult  life  and 
in  the  efforts  which  lay  before  him.  In  connection  with 
these  mysteries,  a  certain  set  of  objects  called  the  toys 
of  Bacchus  are  spoken  of.     When  you  go  over  those 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  85 

lists  of  the  toys  of  Bacchus  you  will  find  them  very 
remarkable. 

Whilst  the  child  Bacchus  (the  Logos)  plays  with  his 
toys  he  is  seized  by  the  Titans  and  torn  to  pieces.  Later 
these  pieces  are  put  together  and  built  into  a  whole. 
You  will  understand  that  this,  however  clumsy  it  may 
seem  to  us,  is  without  doubt  an  allegory,  which  repre- 
sents the  descending  of  the  One  to  become  the  many, 
and  the  re-union  of  the  many  in  the  One,  through  suf- 
fering and  sacrifice.  What,  then,  are  the  toys  of  the 
child  Bacchus  when  he  falls  into  matter  and  becomes 
the  many?  In  the  first  place  we  find  him  playing  with 
dice.  Those  dice  are  not  common  dice,  but  the  five 
platonic  solids;  a  set  of  five  regular  figures,  the  only 
regular  polygons  possible  in  geometry.  They  are  given 
in  a  fixed  series,  and  this  series  agrees  with  the  differ- 
ent planes  of  the  solar  system.  Each  of  them  indicates, 
not  the  form  of  the  atoms  of  the  different  planes,  but 
the  lines  along  which  the  power  works  which  surrounds 
those  atoms.  These  polygons  are  the  tetrahedron,  the 
cube,  the  octohedron,  the  dodecahedron,  and  the  icosa- 
hedron.  If  we  put  the  point  at  one  end  and  the  sphere 
at  the  other  we  get  a  set  of  seven  figures,  corresponding 
to  the  number  of  planes  of  our  solar  system. 

You  know  that  in  some  of  the  older  schools  of  phi- 
losophy it  was  said :  "No  one  can  enter  who  does  not 
know  mathematics."  What  do  you  think  is  meant  by 
that?  Not  what  we  now  call  mathematics,  but  the 
mathematics  which  embraced  the  knowledge  of  the 
higher  planes,  of  their  mutual  relations  and  the  way  in 
which  the  whole  is  built  by  the  will  of  God.  Plato  said, 
"God  geometrizes,"  and  it  is  perfectly  true.  Those 
forms  are  not  conceptions  of  the  human  brain ;  they  are 
truths  of  the  higher  planes.  We  have  formed  the  habit 
of  studying  the  books  of  Euclid,  but  we  study  them  now 


86  THE  INNER  LIFE 

for  themselves,  and  not  as  a  guide  to  something  higher. 
The  old  philosophers  pondered  upon  them  because  they 
led  to  the  understanding  of  the  true  science  of  life.  We 
have  lost  sight  of  the  true  teaching,  and  grasp  in  many- 
cases  only  the  lifeless  form. 

Another  toy  with  which  Bacchus  played  was  a  top, 
the  symbol  of  the  whirling  atom  of  which  you  will  find 
a  picture  in  Occult  Chemistry.  He  also  plays  with  a 
ball  which  represents  the  earth,  that  particular  part  of 
the  planetary  chain  to  which  the  thought  of  the  Logos 
is  specially  directed  at  the  moment.  Also  he  plays  with 
a  mirror.  The  mirror  has  always  been  a  symbol  of 
astral  light,  in  which  the  archetypal  ideas  are  reflected 
and  then  materialized.  So  you  see  that  each  of  those 
toys  indicates  an  essential  part  in  the  evolution  of  a 
solar  system. 

A  few  words  may  be  said  about  the  way  in  which 
people  were  prepared  for  the  study  of  those  mysteries 
by  the  different  schools ;  for  instance,  the  Pythagorean 
school,  to  which  I  belonged.  In  the  Pythagorean 
schools,  the  pupils  were  divided  into  three  classes.  The 
first  was  called  that  of  the  akoustikoi  or  hearers.  This 
means  that  they  were  learners,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
one  of  the  rules  was  that  they  were  to  keep  absolutely 
silent  for  two  years. 

I  think  this  rule  would  be  regarded  as  a  serious 
drawback  by  many  who  join  our  Society  at  the  present 
time,  but  in  those  olden  times  a  great  many  people, 
not  only  men  but  women  too,  submitted  to  this  stipula- 
tion. The  rule  had  also  another  meaning,  but  it  is  a 
fact  that  during  two  years  the  members  of  the  first 
class  were  compelled  to  keep  silence.  The  other  mean- 
ing was  that  during  all  the  time,  however  long,  that  a 
man  stayed  in  this  class  of  the  akoustikoi,  he  might  not 
give  out  any  teaching,  but  continued  to  learn.    I  have 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  87 

wished  that  we  had  some  such  arrangement  in  the 
Theosophical  Society,  for  it  sometimes  happens  that 
members  who  do  not  yet  know  much  themselves  want 
to  teach  others,  and  the  teaching  is  not  always  recog- 
nizable as  Theosophy. 

The  second  class  of  Pythagoreans  was  called  that  of 
the  mathematikoi.  They  passed  their  time  in  studying 
geometry,  numbers  and  music.  They  brought  these 
different  subjects  into  relation  to  one  another  and 
worked  out  the  relations  between  colour  and  sound, 
which  are  very  remarkable. 

Let  us  take  an  example,  which  shows  how  our  world 
is  a  coherent  whole  and  how  we  can  take  facts  from  dif- 
ferent parts  which  do  not  seem  to  have  any  connection 
whatever,  and  bring  them  into  relation  with  each  other. 
I  just  spoke  about  the  five  platonic  polygons.  Every 
one  who  knows  anything  about  music  knows  that  there 
is  a  fixed  proportion  between  the  length  of  the  strings 
which  produce  certain  tones.  You  know  that  you  can 
tune  a  piano  according  to  a  certain  system  of  fifths,  and 
you  can  express  the  relation  of  the  different  tones  to 
one  another  by  the  number  of  vibrations  of  each  tone ; 
so  you  can  express  an  harmonious  chord  in  mathemat- 
ical numbers.  This  was  first  discovered  simply  by 
experiment;  later  the  mathematicians  found  out  what 
the  proportions  should  be,  and  again  by  experiment 
they  were  found  to  be  exact.  But  the  peculiarity  is 
that  the  set  of  numbers  which  produces  an  harmonious 
chord  have  the  same  relation  to  one  another  as  that 
which  exists  between  certain  parts  of  these  platonic 
solids.  I  believe  that  this  point  was  worked  out  some 
time  ago  in  an  article  in  the  Theosophical  Review  by 
one  of  the  English  cathedral  organists. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  our  scale,  so  different  from 
the  old  Greek  scale,  which  consisted  of  five  tones,  can 


88  THE  INNER  LIFE 

still  be  deduced  from  the  proportion  of  those  five  pla- 
tonic  figures,  which  were  studied  some  thousands  of 
years  ago  in  Greece.  One  is  apt  to  think  that  there 
cannot  be  much  relation  between  mathematics  and 
music,  but  you  see  that  they  are  both  parts  of  one 
great  whole. 

The  third  class  of  the  Pythagorean  school  was 
formed  of  the  physikoi — those  who  studied  physics,  the 
inner  connection  between  phenomena,  world-building 
and  metaphysics.  They  learnt  the  truth  about  man  and 
nature  and,  as  far  as  they  could  learn  it,  about  Him 
who  made  both. 

There  is  still  one  point  in  the  mysteries  which  we 
should  not  forget  to  consider — the  life  of  the  disciples. 
A  life  of  perfect  purity  was  strictly  required.  It  is  a 
remarkable  coincidence  that  the  life  in  the  Pythagorean 
school  is  divided  into  five  periods,  almost  similar  to 
the  five  steps  of  the  preparatory  path  of  the  Hindus, 
as  described  by  me  in  Invisible  Helpers,  and  by  Mrs. 
Besant  in  The  Path  of  Discipleship.  Almost  all  the 
forms  and  symbols  of  the  present  Christian  religion  are 
derived  from  the  Egyptian  mysteries.  All  the  symbol- 
ism, for  example,  that  is  related  to  the  Latin  cross,  and 
to  the  descent  and  sacrifice  of  the  Logos,  is  taken  from 
the  Egyptian  mysteries.  I  have  written  about  this  in 
The  Christian  Creed. 

Though  the  mysteries  of  Greece  and  Rome,  of  Egypt 
and  Chaldaea,  are  long  ago  defunct,  the  world  has  never 
been  left  without  avenues  of  approach  to  the  inner 
shrine.  Even  in  the  gross  darkness  of  the  middle  ages 
the  Rosicrucians  and  some  other  secret  societies  were 
ready  to  teach  the  truth  to  those  who  were  ready  to 
learn;  and  now  in  these  modern  days  of  hurry  and 
materialism  the  Theosophical  Society  still  upholds  the 
banner  of  true  knowledge,  and  acts  as  a  gateway  by 


THE  ANCIENT  MYSTERIES  89 

means  of  which  those  who  are  really  in  earnest  may 
reach  the  feet  of  the  Masters  of  the  Wisdom.  We  have 
our  grades  in  the  Esoteric  Section,  just  as  the  mys- 
teries had ;  and  behind  us,  as  behind  them,  stand  always 
the  officials  of  the  Great  White  Brotherhood,  who  keep 
in  their  hands  the  key  to  the  true  initiations. 

You  must  also  remember  that  many  things  given 
in  those  old  days  only  under  the  seal  of  secrecy  are  now 
made  public,  and  through  our  Society  are  given  to  the 
world.  Many  of  the  greatest  and  noblest  characters 
of  history  have  passed  years  in  study  and  work  to  try 
to  find  what  is  now  given  us  so  easily  and  simply  in  a 
few  books.  Of  us  is  perfectly  true  what  is  said  in  the 
Bible :  "Many  prophets  and  kings  have  desired  to  see 
those  things  which  ye  see,  and  have  not  seen  them; 
and  to  hear  those  things  which  ye  hear,  and  have  not 
heard  them."  (Luke,  x.  24.)  Because  this  honour 
is  reserved  for  us  and  this  opportunity  is  given  us,  it 
seems  to  me  that  a  great  responsibility  rests  upon  us, 
and  that  we  should  try  to  be  worthy  of  the  gift.  It  is 
good  karma  which  allows  this  possibility  to  open  before 
us.  If  we  let  it  pass,  we  shall  not  deserve  to  have  an- 
other offered  us  for  thousands  of  years.  If  you  knew, 
as  I  know,  with  what  difficulties  we  had  to  contend  in 
former  days  to  learn  all  those  things  which  are  laid 
before  us  now,  perhaps  you  would  appreciate  more  the 
opportunity  offered  you.  Let  us  try  to  make  use  of  it 
to  the  utmost  of  our  power,  and  show  ourselves  worthy 
of  the  privilege  given  us  by  Theosophy. 


j$*r0ttfc  Bettwn 


eltgtnn 


SECOND  SECTION 

The  Logos 

E  have  in  the  Logos  of  our  solar  system  as 
near  an  approach  to  a  personal  (or  rather, 
perhaps,  individual)  God  as  any  reasonable 
man  can  desire,  for  of  Him  is  true  every- 
thing good  that  has  ever  been  predicated  of  a  personal 
deity.  We  cannot  ascribe  to  Him  partiality,  injustice, 
jealousy,  cruelty;  those  who  desire  these  attributes  in 
their  deity  must  go  elsewhere.  But  so  far  as  His  sys- 
tem is  concerned  He  possesses  omniscience,  omnipres- 
ence, omnipotence ;  the  love,  the  power,  the  wisdom,  the 
glory,  all  are  there  in  fullest  measure.  Yet  He  is  a 
mighty  Individual — a  trinity  in  unity,  and  God  in  very 
truth,  though  removed  by  we  know  not  how  many 
stages  from  the  Absolute,  the  Unknowable  before  which 
even  solar  systems  are  but  as  specks  of  cosmic  dust. 
I  do  not  think  that  we  can  image  Him  at  all.  The  sun 
is  His  chief  manifestation  on  the  physical  plane,  and 
that  may  help  us  a  little  to  realize  some  of  His  qualities, 
and  to  see  how  everything  comes  from  Him.  The  sun 
may  be  considered  as  a  sort  of  force-centre  in  Him, 
corresponding  to  the  heart  of  man,  the  outer  manifesta- 
tion of  the  principal  centre  in  His  body. 

Although  the  whole  solar  system  is  His  physical 
body,  yet  His  activities  outside  of  it  are  enormously 
greater  than  those  within  it.  I  have  myself  preferred 
not  even  to  try  to  make  any  image  of  Him,  but  simply 

93 


94  THE  INNER  LIFE 

to  contemplate  Him  as  pervading  all  things,  so  that 
even  I  myself  am  also  He,  so  that  all  other  men  too  are 
He,  and  in  truth  there  is  nothing  but  God.  Yet  at  the 
same  time,  although  this  that  we  can  see  is  a  manifesta- 
tion of  Him,  this  solar  system  that  seems  so  stupendous 
to  us  is  to  Him  but  a  little  thing,  for,  though  He  is  all 
this,  yet  outside  it  and  above  it  all  He  exists  in  a  glory 
and  a  splendour  of  which  we  know  nothing  as  yet. 
Thus  though  we  agree  with  the  pantheist  that  all  is 
God,  we  yet  go  very  much  further  than  he  does,  because 
we  realize  that  He  has  a  far  greater  existence  above 
and  beyond  His  universe.  "Having  pervaded  this 
whole  universe  with  one  fragment  of  Myself,  I  remain." 
(Bhagavad  Gita,  x.  42.) 

I  do  not  think  that  we  can  find  any  form  of  words 
that  will  at  all  express  the  method  of  our  union  with 
Him.  We  may  in  one  sense  be  cells  in  his  Body,  but  we 
are  certainly  very  much  more  than  that,  for  His  life 
and  power  are  manifested  through  us  in  a  way  which 
is  out  of  all  proportion  to  any  such  manifestation  of 
our  spiritual  life  as  could  be  supposed  to  be  given 
through  the  cells  of  our  bodies.  In  His  manifestation 
on  the  lowest  cosmic  plane  we  may  take  it  that  His  first 
aspect  is  on  the  highest  level,  the  second  on  that  below 
it,  and  the  third  in  the  higher  part  of  the  nirvanic 
plane,  so  that  when  an  adept  gradually  raises  his  con- 
sciousness plane  by  plane  as  he  developes,  he  comes 
first  to  the  third  aspect  and  realizes  his  unity  with  that, 
moving  on  only  after  long  intervals  to  full  union  with 
the  second  and  the  first. 

I  myself  who  speak  to  you  have  once  seen  Him  in  a 
form  which  is  not  the  form  of  His  system.  This  is 
something  which  utterly  transcends  all  ordinary  expe- 
rience, which  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  of  the  lower 
planes.    The  thing  became  possible  for  me  only  through 


THE  LOGOS  95 

a  very  daring  experiment — the  utter  blending  for  a 
moment  of  two  distinct  rays  or  types,  so  that  by  means 
of  this  blending  a  level  could  for  a  moment  be  touched 
enormously  higher  than  any  to  which  either  of  the  egos 
concerned  could  have  attained  alone.  He  exists  far 
above  His  system ;  He  sits  upon  it  as  on  a  lotus  throne. 
He  is  as  it  were  the  apotheosis  of  humanity,  yet  infi- 
nitely greater  than  humanity.  We  might  think  of  the 
Augoeides  carried  up  higher  and  higher,  and  to  infin- 
ity. I  do  not  know  whether  that  form  is  permanent  or 
whether  it  can  be  seen  at  a  certain  level  only — who 
shall  say?  But  that  this  thing  is  a  tremendous  reality 
— that  I  know;  and,  once  seen,  such  a  manifestation 
can  never  be  forgotten. 

One  little  touch  of  higher  experience  I  may  mention, 
though  it  is  one  which  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  de- 
scribe adequately.  When  a  man  raises  his  conscious- 
ness to  the  highest  subdivision  of  his  causal  body,  and 
focuses  it  exclusively  in  the  atomic  matter  of  the  men- 
tal plane,  he  has  before  him  three  possibilities  of  mov- 
ing that  consciousness,  which  correspond  to  some  extent 
with  the  three  dimensions  of  space.  Obviously  a  way 
is  open  to  him  to  move  it  downwards  into  the  second 
subplane  of  the  mental,  or  upward  into  the  lowest  sub- 
plane  of  the  buddhic,  if  he  has  developed  that  suffi- 
ciently to  be  able  to  utilize  it  as  vehicle. 

A  second  line  of  movement  open  to  him  is  the  short 
cut  which  exists  from  the  atomic  subdivision  of  one 
plane  to  the  corresponding  atomic  subdivisions  of  the 
planes  above  and  below,  so  that  without  touching  any 
intermediate  sub-plane  the  consciousness  may  pass 
from  that  atomic  mental  downwards  to  the  atomic 
astral  or  upwards  to  the  atomic  buddhic,  again  of 
course  supposing  the  development  of  this  latter  to  be 
already  achieved.     In  order  to  image  to  oneself  this 


96  THE  INNER  LIFE 

short  cut,  one  may  think  of  the  atomic  subplanes  as 
being  side  by  side  along  a  rod,  the  other  sub-divisions 
of  each  plane  hanging  from  the  rod  in  loops,  as  though 
a  piece  of  string  were  wound  loosely  round  the  rod. 
Obviously  then  to  pass  from  one  atomic  sub-division  to 
another  one  could  move  by  the  short  cut  straight  along 
the  rod,  or  down  and  up  again  through  the  hanging 
loop  of  string  which  symbolizes  the  lower  sub-planes. 
But  there  is  yet  a  third  possibility — a  possibility  not 
so  much  yet  of  movement  along  another  line  at  right 
angles  to  both  of  these  others,  but  rather  a  possibility 
of  looking  up  such  a  line — looking  up  as  a  man  at  the 
bottom  of  a  well  might  look  up  at  a  star  in  the  sky 
above  him. 

For  there  is  a  direct  line  of  communication  between 
the  atomic  sub-plane  of  the  mental  in  this  lowest  cos- 
mic plane  and  the  corresponding  atomic  mental  in  the 
cosmic  plane.  We  are  infinitely  far  as  yet  from  being 
able  to  climb  upwards  by  that  line,  but  once  at  least  the 
experience  came  of  being  able  to  look  up  it  for  a 
moment.  What  is  seen  then  it  is  hopeless  to  try  to 
describe,  for  no  human  words  can  give  the  least  idea  of 
it ;  but  at  least  this  much  emerges,  with  a  certitude  that 
can  never  be  shaken,  that  what  we  have  hitherto  sup- 
posed to  be  our  consciousness,  our  intellect,  is  simply 
not  ours  at  all,  but  His;  not  even  a  reflection  of  His, 
but  literally  and  truly  a  part  of  His  consciousness,  a 
part  of  His  intellect.  Incomprehensible,  yet  literally 
true !  It  is  a  commonplace  of  our  meditation  to  say, 
"I  am  that  Self ;  that  Self  am  I,"  but  to  see  it,  to  know 
it,  to  feel  it,  to  realize  it  in  this  way,  is  something  very 
different  from  that  verbal  recitation. 

From  Him  comes  forth  all  life  in  the  successive  out- 
pourings which  are  described  in  our  books — the  first 
outpouring  from  His  third  aspect,  which  gives  to  pre- 


BUDDHISM  97 

viously  existing  atoms  the  power  to  aggregate  them- 
selves into  the  chemical  elements — the  action  which  is 
described  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  as  the  spirit  of 
God  moving  over  the  waters  of  space.  When,  at  a  later 
stage,  the  kingdoms  of  nature  are  definitely  estab- 
lished, there  comes  the  second  outpouring,  from  His 
second  aspect,  which  forms  group-souls  for  the  min- 
erals, the  plants,  the  animals,  and  this  is  the  descent  of 
the  Christ  principle  into  matter,  which  alone  renders 
possible  our  very  existence.  But  when  we  think  of  the 
human  kingdom  we  remember  that  the  ego  itself  is  a 
manifestation  of  the  third  outpouring  which  comes 
from  His  first  aspect,  the  eternal  and  all-loving  Father. 
Every  fixed  star  is  a  sun  like  our  own,  and  each  one 
is  a  partial  expression  of  a  Logos. 


Buddhism 

In  thinking  of  the  Lord  Buddha  we  must  not  forget 
that  He  is  very  much  more  than  merely  the  founder  of 
a  religion.  He  is  a  great  official  of  the  Occult  Hier- 
archy, the  greatest  of  all  save  one,  and  the  founder  in 
previous  incarnations  of  many  religions  before  this  one 
which  now  bears  His  title.  For  He  was  the  Vyasa  who 
has  done  so  much  for  the  Indian  religion;  He  was 
Hermes,  the  great  founder  of  the  Egyptian  mysteries ; 
He  was  the  original  Zoroaster,  from  whom  came  the 
sun  and  fire  worship;  and  he  was  also  Orpheus,  the 
great  bard  of  the  Greeks. 

In  this  last  of  His  many  births,  when  He  came  as  the 
Lord  Gautama,  it  does  not  appear  that  He  had  origi- 
nally any  intention  of  founding  a  new  religion.     He 


98  THE  INNER  LIFE 

appeared  simply  as  a  reformer  of  Hinduism  —  a 
faith  which  was  already  of  hoary  antiquity,  and  had 
therefore  departed  much  from  its  original  form,  as  all 
religions  have.  It  had  become  hardened  in  many  ways, 
and  appears  to  have  been  very  far  less  elastic  even  than 
it  is  now.  Even  now  we  all  know  how  strictly  drawn 
are  the  lines  between  the  castes,  what  an  iron  rigidity 
there  is  as  to  forms  and  ceremonies.  We  know  that 
even  now  no  man  can  be  converted  to  Hinduism;  the 
only  way  to  enter  that  faith  is  to  be  born  into  it. 

Imagine  a  condition  in  which  all  this  was  even  far 
more  rigid,  in  which  the  feeling  was  much  more  in- 
tense, in  which  all  the  ideas  of  life  had  been  very  much 
changed  from  what  they  were  in  the  days  of  the  orig- 
inal Aryan  immigrants,  when  it  was  a  religion  full  of 
joy,  and  holding  out  hope  for  everybody.  A  little  be- 
fore the  time  of  the  Buddha  the  general  opinion  seems 
to  have  been  that  practically  no  one  but  a  brahman 
had  any  chance  of  salvation  at  all.  Now  as  the  num- 
ber of  the  brahmans  was  always  small,  and  even  now 
is  only  something  like  thirteen  millions  out  of  the  three 
hundred  million  inhabitants  of  India,  it  was  clearly 
not  a  very  hopeful  religion  for  the  majority  of  the 
people,  since  it  indicated  to  them  that  they  had  to  work 
on  through  very  many  lives,  until  they  could  earn  ad- 
mission into  the  small  and  exclusive  brahman  caste, 
before  they  could  possibly  escape  from  the  wheel  of 
birth  and  death. 

Then  came  Lord  Buddha,  and  by  His  teaching  flung 
open  wide  the  gates  of  the  sweet  law  of  justice,  for 
He  taught  that  men  had  departed  entirely  from  the  old 
form  of  religion.  He  repeatedly  asserted  that  a  man 
who,  though  born  a  brahman,  did  not  live  the  life  which 
a  brahman  should,  was  neither  worthy  of  respect  nor 
in  the  way  of  salvation,  and  that  a  man  of  any  other 


BUDDHISM  99 

caste  who  did  live  the  true  brahman  life,  should  be 
treated  as  a  brahman,  and  had  in  every  way  the  same 
possibilities  before  him  as  though  he  had  been  born 
into  the  sacred  caste. 

Naturally  enough  in  the  face  of  teachings  which 
placed  all  hope  of  final  salvation  so  indefinitely  far 
away  in  the  future,  the  ordinary  man  of  the  world 
had  become  hopeless  and  consequently  careless ;  on  the 
other  hand,  the  austerity  of  the  brahman,  who  spent 
the  whole  of  his  life  in  ceremonies  and  in  meditation, 
was  not  to  their  taste,  and  indeed  was  obviously  im- 
possible for  them.  But  the  Buddha  preached  to  them 
what  He  called  the  middle  way;  He  told  them  that 
although  the  life  of  austerity  and  of  entire  devotion 
to  religion  was  not  for  them,  there  was  no  reason  why, 
because  of  that,  they  should  relapse  into  carelessness 
and  evil  living.  He  showed  them  that  a  higher  life  is 
possible  for  the  man  still  in  the  world,  and  that,  though 
they  might  not  be  able  to  devote  themselves  to  meta- 
physics and  to  hairsplitting  arguments,  they  could  still 
obtain  sufficient  grasp  of  the  great  facts  of  evolution 
to  form  a  satisfactory  guide  to  them  in  their  lives. 

He  declared  that  extremes  in  either  direction  are 
equally  irrational ;  that  on  the  one  hand  the  life  of  the 
ordinary  man  of  the  world,  wrapped  up  entirely  in  his 
business,  pursuing  dreams  of  wealth  and  power,  is 
foolish  and  defective  because  it  leaves  out  of  account 
all  that  is  really  worthy  of  consideration ;  but  that  on 
the  other  hand  the  extreme  asceticism  that  teaches 
each  man  to  turn  his  back  upon  the  world  altogether, 
and  to  devote  himself  exclusively  and  selfishly  to  the 
endeavour  to  shut  himself  away  from  it  and  escape 
from  it,  is  also  foolish.  He  held  that  the  middle  path 
of  truth  and  beauty  is  the  best  and  safest,  and  that 
while  certainly  the  life  devoted  entirely  to  spirituality 


100  THE  INNER  LIFE 

is  the  highest  of  all  for  those  who  are  ready  for  it,  there 
is  also  a  good  and  true  and  spiritual  life  possible  for 
the  man  who  yet  holds  his  place  and  does  his  work 
in  the  world. 

He  based  His  doctrines  solely  on  reason  and  com- 
mon-sense; He  asked  no  man  to  believe  anything 
blindly,  but  rather  told  him  to  open  his  eyes  and  look 
around  him.  He  declared  that  in  spite  of  all  the  sor- 
row and  misery  of  the  world,  the  great  scheme  of  which 
man  is  a  part  is  a  scheme  of  eternal  justice,  and  that 
the  law  under  which  we  are  living  is  a  good  law,  and 
needs  only  that  we  should  understand  it  and  adapt  our- 
selves to  it.  He  taught  that  all  life  is  suffering,  but 
that  man  causes  his  own  trouble  for  himself,  because 
he  yields  himself  perpetually  to  desire  for  that  which 
he  has  not,  and  He  said  that  happiness  and  content- 
ment can  be  gained  better  by  limiting  desires  than  by 
increasing  possessions. 

To  this  end  He  tabulated  His  teaching  in  the  most 
marvellous  manner,  arranging  everything  under  cer- 
tain headings  which  could  be  readily  memorized.  This 
constitutes  in  reality  a  carefully  graded  system  of 
mnemonics.  It  is  so  simple  in  its  broad  outline  that 
any  child  can  remember  and  understand  its  four  noble 
truths,  its  noble  eightfold  path,  and  the  principles  of 
life  which  they  suggest ;  yet  it  is  carried  out  so  elabor- 
ately that  it  constitutes  a  system  of  philosophy  which 
the  wisest  man  may  study  all  his  life  through,  and  yet 
find  in  it  ever  more  and  more  light  upon  the  problems 
of  life. 

He  analyzed  everything  to  an  almost  incredible  ex- 
tent, as  may  be  seen  by  a  study  of  the  twelve  nidanas, 
or  by  His  enumeration  of  the  steps  which  intervene 
between  thought  and  action.  Each  of  His  four  noble 
truths  is  represented  by  a  single  word,  and  yet  to  any 


BUDDHISM  101 

one  who  has  ever  heard  the  exposition  of  the  system 
each  of  those  words  inevitably  calls  up  a  great  range 
of  ideas.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  words  signi- 
fying the  steps  of  the  noble  eightfold  path,  and  of  the 
"great  perfections"  which  are  spoken  of  in  The  Voice 
of  the  Silence.  All  of  these  perfections  are  simply 
wisdom,  power  and  love  appearing  in  different  forms. 
They  are  sometimes  reckoned  as  six,  but  more  com- 
monly as  ten.  The  six  are  given  as  perfect  charity, 
perfect  morality,  perfect  patience,  perfect  energy,  per- 
fect truth  and  perfect  wisdom ;  and  the  other  four 
which  are  sometimes  added  are  perfect  resignation, 
perfect  resolution,  perfect  kindness  and  perfect  abne- 
gation. 

The  religion  of  Buddhism  has  practically  disap- 
peared from  India,  yet  it  has  left  behind  it  lasting 
results,  and  the  country  bears  everywhere  the  strong 
impress  of  His  teachings.  Before  His  coming  blood- 
sacrifices  appear  to  have  been  universal ;  even  now  they 
still  exist,  but  are  comparatively  rare,  for  He  taught 
that  such  things  were  not  pleasing  to  any  noble  diety, 
but  that  the  Gods  desired  rather  the  sacrifice  of  a  holy 
life. 

In  looking  back  upon  the  record  of  those  times  we  see 
that  He  preached  mostly  in  the  open  air,  and  nearly 
always  sitting  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  with  the  listeners 
sitting  on  the  ground  about  Him,  or  standing  leaning 
against  the  trees,  men  and  women  intermingling,  and 
little  children  running  about  and  playing  upon  the  out- 
skirts of  the  crowd.  The  great  teacher  had  a  most 
wonderful  voice,  gloriously  full  and  sonorous,  and  a 
personality  which  instantly  commanded  the  attention 
of  all  who  heard  Him,  and  invariably  won  their  hearts, 
even  in  the  rare  cases  where  they  did  not  agree  with 
what  he  said.    The  audiences  were  stirred  up  to  great 


102  THE  INNER  LIFE 

religious  fervor ;  we  find  them  constantly  raising  cries 
of  "Sadhu,  Sadhu,"  by  way  of  applause,  when  any- 
thing was  said  which  especially  moved  them,  and  at 
the  same  time  raising  their  joined  hands  in  an  attitude 
of  salutation. 

Part  at  least  of  this  influence  was  due  to  the  tremen- 
dously strong  vibrations  of  His  aura,  which  was  of 
very  great  size,  so  that  the  audience  were  actually  sit- 
ting within  it  and  being  attuned  to  it  while  they  lis- 
tened to  His  discourse.  Its  magnetic  effect  was  al- 
most indescribable,  and  while  His  hearers  were  within 
its  influence  even  the  most  stupid  of  them  could  under- 
stand to  the  full  whatever  He  said,  though  often  after- 
wards when  they  had  passed  away  from  that  influ- 
ence they  found  it  difficult  to  comprehend  it  at  all  in 
the  same  way.  To  this  marvellous  influence  also  is 
due  the  phenomenon  so  often  described  in  the  Buddhist 
books — the  attainment  of  the  arhat  level  by  such  large 
numbers  of  His  hearers.  It  is  quite  a  common  thing 
to  read  in  the  accounts  given  in  the  Buddhist  scrip- 
tures that  after  a  sermon  of  the  Buddha  hundreds  of 
men,  even  thousands,  reached  the  arhat  level.  Know- 
ing what  a  very  high  degree  of  attainment  this  means, 
this  seemed  to  us,  when  we  read  it,  almost  incredible, 
and  we  supposed  it  to  be  simply  a  case  of  oriental  ex- 
aggeration; but  later  and  closer  study  has  shown  us 
that  the  accounts  are  actually  true.  So  remarkable 
a  result  seemed  to  call  for  further  investigation  into 
its  causes,  and  we  found  that  in  order  to  understand 
all  this  it  was  necessary  to  take  into  account  not  this 
one  life  only,  but  the  work  of  many  previous  incarna- 
tions. 

We  must  remember  that  the  Lord  Gautama  is  the 
Buddha  of  the  fourth  root-race,  even  though  this  last 
incarnation  of  His  was  taken  in  the  fifth.    He  had  been 


BUDDHISM  103 

born  many  times  in  various  Atlantean  races,  and  al- 
ways as  a  great  teacher.  In  each  of  those  lives  He 
had  drawn  around  Him  many  pupils,  who  had  grad- 
ually been  raised  to  higher  levels  of  thought  and  of 
life,  and  when  He  came  in  India  for  this  last  culmi- 
nating birth  He  arranged  that  all  those  whom  at  many 
different  times  and  in  many  different  lands  He  had  in- 
fluenced should  be  brought  together  into  incarnation 
at  the  same  time.  Thus  His  audiences  were  to  a  large 
extent  composed  of  fully  prepared  and,  as  it  were, 
highly  specialized  souls,  and  when  these  came  under 
the  influence  of  the  extraordinarily  powerful  mag- 
netism of  a  Buddha,  they  understood  and  followed 
every  word  which  He  said,  and  the  action  upon  them 
as  egos  was  of  the  most  wonderfully  stimulating  na- 
ture. Therefore  it  was  that  they  so  readily  responded ; 
therefore  it  was  that  so  large  a  number  of  them  could 
be  and  were  raised  so  rapidly  to  such  dizzy  heights. 

In  the  third  volume  of  The  Secret  Doctrine  we  shall 
find  an  exceedingly  interesting  and  suggestive  section 
called  The  Mystery  of  Buddha,  which  refers  to  the  fact 
that  the  Buddha  prepared  His  own  inner  bodies  of 
very  high  grades  of  matter,  with  the  fullest  develop- 
ment of  the  spirillae.  His  buddhic,  causal  and  mental 
bodies  are  kept  together  for  other  Great  Ones  to  use, 
because  of  the  exceeding  difficulty  of  producing  others 
equal  to  them.  The  Christ  used  them  along  with  the 
physical  body  of  Jesus,  while  the  latter  waited  on 
higher  planes  in  his  own  vehicles.  Shankaracharya 
also  used  these  "remains."  Hence  arose  the  incorrect 
idea  that  He  was  a  reincarnation  of  the  Buddha.  The 
coming  Christ  will  also  use  these  vehicles,  wedding 
them  to  another  physical  body  which  is  even  now  be- 
ing prepared  for  Him. 

Buddhism  still  claims  a  larger  number  of  adherents 


104  THE  INNER  LIFE 

than  any  other  religion  in  the  world,  and  is  a  living 
influence  in  the  lives  of  millions  of  our  fellow-men. 
It  would  be  quite  unfair  to  judge  it  by  what  is  written 
about  it  by  European  orientalists.  When  I  was  in 
Ceylon  and  Burma  I  compared  these  accounts  with 
the  interpretation  given  to  the  doctrines  by  the  liv- 
ing followers  of  His  religion.  Learned  monks  in  these 
countries  approach  the  subject  with  an  accuracy  of 
knowledge  at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  most  advanced 
orientalists,  but  their  interpretation  of  the  doctrines 
is  very  far  less  wooden  and  lifeless.  By  far  the  best 
book  in  English  to  give  one  a  real  idea  of  the  religion 
as  it  is  held  by  living  men  is  The  Light  of  Asia,  by 
Sir  Edwin  Arnold;  and  another  book,  which  makes  a 
good  second  to  it,  is  The  Soul  of  a  People,  by  H.  Field- 
ing Hall.  Some  critics  have  said  that  Sir  Edwin  Arn- 
old has  gone  a  little  beyond  the  bare  literal  meaning 
of  the  words  of  the  text,  and  is  trying  to  read  Christ- 
ian ideas  into  them.  I  do  not  think  this  is  so,  and  I 
have  certainly  found  that  he  expresses  far  more  closely 
the  feeling  and  attitude  of  the  Buddhists  than  any 
other  writer. 

Buddhism  is  now  divided  into  two  great  Churches, 
the  Northern  and  the  Southern,  and  both  of  them  have 
departed  to  some  extent  from  the  original  teaching 
of  the  Buddha,  though  in  different  directions.  The 
religion  is  so  plain  and  straightforward,  and  so  obvi- 
ously common-sense  that  almost  any  person  may  read- 
ily adapt  himself  to  it,  without  necessarily  giving  up 
the  beliefs  and  practices  of  other  faiths.  As  a  conse- 
quence of  this  in  the  Northern  Church  we  have  a  form 
of  Buddhism  with  an  immense  amount  of  accretion. 
It  seems  to  have  absorbed  into  itself  many  ceremonies 
and  beliefs  of  the  aboriginal  faith  which  it  supplanted ; 
so  that  in  Tibet,  for  example,  we  find  it  including  a 


BUDDHISM  105 

whole  hierarchy  of  minor  deities,  devas  and  demons 
which  were  entirely  unknown  to  the  original  scheme 
of  the  Buddha.  The  Southern  Church,  on  the  other 
hand,  instead  of  adding  to  the  teaching  of  the  Buddha, 
has  lost  something  from  it.  It  has  intensified  the  ma- 
terial and  the  abstract  sides  of  the  philosophy. 

It  teaches  that  nothing  but  Karma  passes  over  from 
life  to  life — that  there  is  no  permanent  ego  in  man, 
but  that  in  his  next  birth  he  is  in  effect  a  new  man, 
who  is  the  result  of  the  karma  of  the  previous  life; 
and  they  quote  various  sayings  of  the  Buddha  in  sup- 
port of  this.  It  is  true  that  He  often  spoke  very 
strongly  against  the  persistence  of  the  personality, 
and  that  He  assured  His  hearers  again  and  again  that 
nothing  whatever  which  they  knew  in  connection  with 
a  man  could  pass  over  to  another  birth.  But  He  no- 
where denied  the  individuality;  in  fact  many  of  His 
sayings  absolutely  affirm  it.  Take  for  example  a  text 
which  occurs  in  the  Samannayhalasutta  of  the  Digha- 
Nikaya.  When  first  mentioning  the  condition  and 
training  of  the  mind  that  are  necessary  for  success  in 
spiritual  progress,  the  Buddha  describes  how  he  sees 
all  the  scenes  in  which  he  was  in  any  way  concerned 
passing  in  succession  before  his  mind's  eye.  He  illus- 
trates it  by  saying: 

"If  a  man  goes  out  from  his  own  village  to  another 
and  thence  to  another,  and  from  there  comes  back 
again  to  his  own  village,  he  may  think  thus:  'I  in- 
deed went  from  my  own  village  to  that  other.  There 
I  stood  thus;  I  sat  in  this  manner;  thus  I  spoke,  and 
thus  I  remained  silent.  From  that  village  again  I  went 
to  another,  and  I  did  the  same  there.  The  same  'I 
am'  returned  from  that  village  to  my  own  village.' 
In  the  very  same  way,  0  King,  the  ascetic,  when  his 
mind  is  pure,  knows  his  former  births.     He  thinks: 


106  THE  INNER  LIFE 

'In  such  a  place  I  had  such  a  name.  I  was  born  in  such 
a  family,  such  was  my  caste,  such  was  my  food,  and 
in  such  and  such  a  way  I  experienced  pleasure  and 
pain,  and  my  life  extended  through  in  some  other  place, 
and  there  also  I  had  such  and  such  conditions.  Thence 
removed,  the  same  T  am  now  born  here.'  " 

This  question  shows  very  clearly  the  doctrine  of  the 
Buddha  with  regard  to  the  reincarnating  ego.  He  gives 
illustrations  also  in  the  same  Sutta  of  the  manner  in 
which  an  ascetic  can  know  the  past  births  of  others — 
how  he  can  see  them  die  in  one  place,  and  after  the 
sorrows  and  joys  of  hell  and  heaven  the  same  men 
are  born  again  somewhere  else.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
Brahmajala  Sutta  He  mentions  all  the  various  aspects 
of  the  soul,  and  says  that  they  do  not  absolutely  exist, 
because  their  existence  depends  upon  "contact,"  that 
is  to  say  upon  relation.  But  in  thus  denying  the  abso- 
lute reality  of  the  soul  He  agrees  with  the  other  great 
Indian  teachers,  for  the  existence  not  only  of  the 
soul  but  even  of  the  Logos  Himself  is  true  only 
relatively. 

Untrained  minds  frequently  misunderstand  these 
ideas,  but  the  careful  student  of  oriental  thought  will 
not  fail  to  grasp  exactly  what  is  meant,  and  to  real- 
ize that  the  teaching  of  the  Buddha  in  this  respect 
is  exactly  that  now  given  by  Theosophy.  It  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  various  texts  might  be  so  emphasized 
or  distorted  as  to  seem  to  contradict  one  another,  and 
the  Southern  Church  has  chosen  to  cling  rather  to  the 
denial  of  the  permanence  of  the  personality  than  to 
the  assertion  of  the  continuity  of  the  individuality, 
just  as  in  Christianity  some  people  have  acquired  the 
habit  of  laying  stress  on  particular  texts,  and  ignor- 
ing others  which  contradict  them. 

Another  point  as  to  which  there  is  a  very  similar 


BUDDHISM  107 

misunderstanding  is  the  constantly  repeated  assertion 
that  nirvana  is  equivalent  to  annihilation.  Even  Max 
Mueller,  the  great  Oxford  Sanskritist,  was  under  this 
delusion  for  many  years,  but  later  in  his  life  with  fur- 
ther and  deeper  study  he  came  to  understand  that  in 
this  he  had  been  mistaken.  The  description  which 
the  Lord  Buddha  Himself  gives  to  nirvana  is  so  far 
above  the  comprehension  of  any  man  who  is  trained 
only  in  ordinary  and  worldly  methods  of  thought  that 
it  is  little  wonder  that  it  should  have  been  misunder- 
stood at  first  sight  by  the  European  orientalists;  but 
no  one  who  has  lived  in  the  East  among  the  Buddhists 
can  for  a  moment  suppose  that  they  regard  annihila- 
tion as  the  end  which  they  are  striving  to  reach. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  attaining  of  nirvana  does 
involve  the  utter  annihilation  of  that  lower  side  of  man 
which  is  in  truth  all  that  we  know  of  him  at  the  pres- 
ent time.  The  personality,  like  everything  connected 
with  the  lower  vehicles,  is  impermanent  and  will  dis- 
appear. If  we  endeavour  to  realize  what  man  would 
be  when  deprived  of  all  which  is  included  under  these 
terms  we  shall  see  that  for  us  at  our  present  stage  it 
would  be  difficult  to  comprehend  that  anything  re- 
mained, and  yet  the  truth  is  that  everything  remains — 
that  in  the  glorified  spirit  which  then  exists,  all  the 
essence  of  all  the  qualities  which  have  been  developed 
through  the  centuries  of  strife  and  stress  in  earthly  in- 
carnation will  inhere  to  the  fullest  possible  degree. 
The  man  has  become  more  than  man,  since  he  is  now 
on  the  threshold  of  Divinity;  yet  he  is  still  himself, 
even  though  it  be  a  so  much  wider  self. 

Many  definitions  have  been  given  of  nirvana,  and 
naturally  none  of  them  can  possibly  be  satisfactory; 
perhaps  the  best  on  the  whole  is  that  of  peace  in  omnis- 
cience.   Many  years  ago  when  I  was  preparing  a  sim- 


108  THE  INNER  LIFE 

pie  introductory  catechism  of  their  religion  for  Budd- 
hist children,  the  chief  Abbot  Sumangala  himself  gave 
me  as  the  best  definition  of  nirvana  to  put  before  them 
that  it  was  a  condition  of  peace  and  blessedness  so 
high  above  our  present  state  that  it  was  impossible 
for  us  to  understand  it.  Surely  that  is  far  removed 
from  the  idea  of  annihilation.  Truly  all  that  we  now 
call  the  man  has  disappeared,  but  that  is  not  because 
the  individuality  is  annihilated,  but  because  it  is  lost 
in  divinity. 

The  Buddha  Himself  once  said:  "Nirvana  is  not 
being,  but  also  it  is  not  non-being." 

Another  difference  between  the  Northern  Church  of 
Buddhism  and  the  Southern  is  that  they  adopt  differ- 
ent versions  of  the  scriptures.  It  is  usually  stated 
that  the  Northern  Church  adopts  the  Mahayana  and 
the  Southern  the  Hinayana,  but  whether  even  this 
much  may  be  safely  said  depends  upon  the  shade  of 
meaning  which  we  attach  to  a  much-disputed  word. 
Yana  means  vehicle,  and  it  is  agreed  that  it  is  to  be 
applied  to  the  dhamma  or  law,  as  the  vessel  which  con- 
veys, us  across  the  sea  of  life  to  nirvana,  but  there  are 
at  least  five  theories  as  to  the  exact  sense  in  which  it 
is  to  be  taken. 

1.  That  it  refers  simply  to  the  language  in  which 
the  law  is  written,  the  greater  vehicle  being  by  this 
hypothesis  Sanskrit,  and  the  lesser  vehicle  Pali — a  the- 
ory which  seems  to  me  untenable.  It  is  true  that  the 
Northern  Church  uses  the  Sanskrit  translation,  while 
the  Southern  scriptures  are  in  Pali,  the  language  which 
the  Lord  Buddha  spoke  when  on  earth.  It  is  stated 
that  the  Pali  scriptures  which  we  now  possess  are 
not  in  the  original  form,  but  that  all  the  originals  ex- 
isting (in  Ceylon  at  least)  were  carefully  destroyed 
by  the  Tamil  invaders,  so  that  the  Pali  scriptures  which 


BUDDHISM  109 

we  now  have  are  a  retranslation  made  from  a  copy 
in  Elu,  then  the  vernacular  language  of  Ceylon. 

2.  Hina  may  apparently  be  taken  as  signifying 
mean  or  easy,  as  well  as  small.  One  interpretation 
therefore  considers  that  the  Hinayana  is  the  meaner 
or  easier  road  to  liberation — the  irreducible  minimum 
of  knowledge  and  conduct  required  to  attain  it,  while 
the  Mahayana  is  the  fuller  and  more  philosophical  doc- 
trine, which  includes  much  traditional  knowledge  about 
higher  realms  of  nature.  Needless  to  say,  this  inter- 
pretation comes  from  a  Mahayana  source. 

3.  That  Buddhism,  in  its  unfailing  courtesy  towards 
other  religions,  accepts  them  all  as  ways  to  liberation, 
though  it  regards  the  method  taught  by  its  founder 
as  offering  the  shortest  and  surest  route.  According 
to  this  view  Buddhism  is  the  Mahayana,  and  the  Hina- 
yana includes  Brahmanism,  Zoroastrianism,  Jainism, 
and  any  other  religions  which  were  existing  at  the  time 
when  the  definition  was  formulated. 

4.  That  the  two  doctrines  are  simply  two  stages  of 
one  doctrine — the  Hinayana  for  the  Sravakas  or  hear- 
ers, and  the  Mahayana  for  more  advanced  students. 

5.  That  the  word  Yana  is  to  be  understood  not  ex- 
actly in  its  primary  sense  of  Vehicle,'  but  rather  in  its 
secondary  sense,  nearly  equivalent  to  the  English  word 
'career.'  According  to  this  interpretation  the  Maha- 
yana puts  before  the  man  the  'grand  career'  of  becom- 
ing a  Bodhisattva  and  devoting  himself  to  the  welfare 
of  the  world,  while  the  Hinayana  shows  him  only  the 
smaller  'career'  of  so  living  as  to  attain  nirvana  for 
himself. 

There  has  also  been  much  discussion  as  to  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  terms  Adi-Buddha  and  Avalokitesh- 
wara.  I  have  made  no  special  study  of  these  things 
from  the  philosophical  standpoint,  but  so  far  as  I  have 


110  THE  INNER  LIFE 

been  able  to  gather  ideas  from  discussion  of  the  mat- 
ter with  the  living  exponents  of  the  religion,  Adi- 
Buddha  seems  to  be  the  culmination  of  one  of  the  great 
lines  of  superhuman  development — what  might  be 
called  the  abstract  principle  of  all  the  Buddhas.  Avalo- 
kiteshwara  is  a  term  belonging  to  the  Northern  Church, 
and  seems  to  be  the  Buddhists'  name  for  their  concep- 
tion of  the  Logos.  European  scholars  have  translated 
it :  "The  Lord  who  looks  down  from  on  high,"  but  this 
seems  to  have  in  it  a  somewhat  inaccurate  implication, 
for  it  is  clearly  always  the  manifested  Logos;  some- 
times the  Logos  of  a  solar  system  and  sometimes  higher 
than  that,  but  always  manifest.  We  must  not  forget 
that  while  the  founders  of  the  great  religions  see  and 
know  the  things  which  They  name,  Their  followers  us- 
ually do  not  see;  they  have  only  the  names,  and  they 
juggle  with  them  as  intellectual  counters,  and  build  up 
much  which  is  incorrect  and  inconsistent. 

The  Buddhism  of  the  Southern  Church,  which  in- 
cludes Ceylon,  Burma,  Siam  and  Cambodia,  has  on 
the  whole  kept  its  religion  free  from  the  accretions 
which  have  become  so  prominent  in  the  Northern  divi- 
sion of  Japan,  China  and  Tibet.  In  Burma  no  image 
appears  in  the  temples  except  that  of  the  Buddha, 
though  of  Him  there  are  in  some  cases  hundreds  of 
images,  of  different  material,  in  different  positions, 
presented  by  various  worshippers.  In  Ceylon  a  cer- 
tain concession  seems  to  have  been  made  to  popular 
feeling,  or  perhaps  to  a  foreign  government  during  the 
time  of  the  Tamil  kings,  for  the  images  of  certain 
Hindu  deities  are  often  to  be  seen  in  the  temples,  though 
they  are  always  placed  in  a  subordinate  position  and 
considered  as  a  kind  of  attendants  upon  the  Buddha. 
We  need  not  however  blame  the  Tibetans  very  much 
for  the  fact  that  certain  superstitions  have  crept  into 


BUDDHISM  111 

their  Buddhism.  The  same  thing  happens  in  all  coun- 
tries, and  with  all  religions,  as  time  goes  on.  In  Italy, 
for  example,  numbers  of  the  peasants  in  the  hills  still 
follow  what  they  call  the  old  religion,  and  continue 
even  in  the  present  day  the  worship  of  Bacchus,  under 
an  Etruscan  name  which  antedates  even  the  time  of 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  Catholic  priests  quite  recog- 
nize the  existence  of  this  older  faith,  and  set  themselves 
against  it,  but  without  avail. 

In  Southern  Buddhism  there  is  remarkably  little 
ceremony  of  any  kind — practically  nothing  indeed  that 
in  any  way  corresponds  to  the  Christian  service.  When 
the  people  pay  their  morning  visit  to  the  temple  they 
usually  call  upon  the  monks  to  recite  for  them  the  three 
guides  and  the  five  precepts,  which  they  then  repeat 
after  him,  but  even  this  can  hardly  be  called  a  public 
service,  for  it  is  recited  not  once  at  a  set  time,  but 
for  each  group  of  people  as  they  happen  to  arrive. 
There  is  another  ceremony  called  Paritta  or  Pirit 
(which  means  'blessings')  but  this  is  not  performed 
in  the  temple  itself  nor  at  any  stated  times,  but  it  is 
considered  a  good  work  on  the  part  of  the  laity  to  cele- 
brate any  special  occasion  by  giving  a  Pirit  ceremony 
— that  is  to  say  by  erecting  and  elaborately  decorat- 
ing a  temporary  building  in  which  the  ceremony  is 
held.  It  consists  of  the  chanting  of  benedictory  verses 
from  the  sacred  scriptures,  and  is  carried  on  for  a 
certain  number  of  days,  usually  a  fortnight,  by  relays 
of  monks  who  relieve  one  another  every  two  hours. 

Sometimes  when  a  man  falls  ill  one  of  these  Pirit 
ceremonies  is  arranged  for  him,  with  the  idea  that  it 
will  promote  his  recovery.  It  is  in  reality  a  mesmeric 
ceremony,  for  the  monks  sit  in  a  circle  and  hold  in 
their  hands  a  rope  which  runs  round  the  circle,  and 
they  are  instructed  to  recite  their  texts,  keeping  clearly 


112  THE  INNER  LIFE 

in  their  minds  all  the  time  the  will  to  bless.  Naturally 
this  rope  becomes  very  strongly  magnetized  as  the 
ceremony  progresses,  and  strings  run  from  it  to  a  huge 
pot  of  water,  which  of  course  also  becomes  highly 
charged  with  magnetism.  At  the  conclusion  of  the 
ceremony  this  water  is  distributed  among  the  people, 
and  the  sick  man  often  holds  a  thread  which  is  con- 
nected with  the  rope. 

The  Southern  Buddhists  give  a  list  of  five  psychic 
powers  which  may  be  gained  by  the  man  who  is  mak- 
ing progress  on  the  Path.  (1)  The  ability  to  pass 
through  the  air  and  through  solid  objects,  and  to  visit 
the  heaven-world  while  still  alive.  It  is  however  pos- 
sible that  this  may  mean  nothing  more  than  ability 
to  function  freely  in  the  astral  body,  because  it  is  quite 
likely  that  in  speaking  of  the  heaven-world  they  do  not 
really  mean  the  mental  plane,  but  only  the  higher  levels 
of  the  astral.  (2)  Divinely  clear  hearing — which  is 
evidently  merely  the  astral  faculty  of  clairaudience. 
(3)  The  ability  to  comprehend  and  sympathize  with 
all  that  is  in  the  minds  of  others — which  appears  to 
be  thought-reading,  or  perhaps  telepathy.  (4)  The 
Power  to  remember  former  births.  (5)  Divinely  clear 
vision — that  is  to  say,  clairvoyance.  To  this  is  added 
in  some  lists  the  attainment  of  deliverance  by  wisdom. 
This  must  of  course  mean  the  attainment  of  freedom 
from  the  necessity  of  rebirth,  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
be  of  the  same  nature  as  the  other  powers,  and  per- 
haps should  hardly  appear  in  the  same  category. 

Ananda  is  said  to  have  been  the  favourite  disciple 
of  the  Lord  Buddha,  just  as  John  is  spoken  of  as  the 
beloved  disciple  of  the  Christ,  and  no  doubt  in  both 
cases  the  special  intimacy  was  the  result  of  relation- 
ship in  previous  lives.  Ananda  was  certainly  not  so 
chosen  because  he  was  the  most  advanced,  for  even 


BUDDHISM  113 

after  the  death  of  the  Buddha  we  hear  that  when  the 
first  great  council  was  held  in  a  cave  within  the  liv- 
ing rock,  and  the  condition  of  taking  part  in  it  was 
that  none  should  enter  who  could  not  pass  through 
the  rock,  Ananda  found  himself  shut  out  from  it  be- 
cause he  had  not  yet  attained  this  power.  But  it  is 
said  that  his  grief  at  this  exclusion  from  a  grand  op- 
portunity of  serving  his  departed  Master  was  so  great 
that  by  a  supreme  effort  of  will  he  then  and  there  de- 
veloped the  power  which  had  been  lacking,  and  passed 
in  triumphantly  to  take  his  place  among  his  brothers, 
though  a  little  late. 

This  shows  us  that  even  those  who  are  the  most 
highly  advanced  of  all  humanity  have  still  their  special 
friendships,  and  that  therefore  to  love  one  person  more 
than  another  cannot  be  improper.  It  is  true  that  such 
affection  as  you  now  feel  for  your  nearest  and  dear- 
est you  will  feel  later  on  for  the  whole  world,  but  at 
that  time  you  will  feel  a  thousand  times  more  affec- 
tion for  those  who  are  nearest  to  you.  Your  love  will 
never  be  the  same  for  all,  although  all  will  be  included 
within  it.  It  is  impossible  that  we  should  feel  towards 
another  as  we  do  towards  our  Master,  for  when  He 
becomes  a  Logos  we  shall  be  part  of  His  system,  and 
even  when  far  later  on  we  ourselves  become  Logoi  we 
shall  still  be  part  of  Him,  for  He  will  represent  some 
far  greater  system.  Although  there  will  always  be 
greater  love  for  some  than  others,  we  shall  help  those 
whom  we  love  less  just  as  fully  as  those  whom  we  love 
more.  We  shall  always  do  our  best  for  all,  just  as 
a  doctor  equally  helps  his  patient  whether  he  be  a 
friend  or  not,  for  anything  like  dislike  or  hatred  will 
have  ceased  aeons  before. 

At  the  time  of  the  Lord  Buddha  many  other  spirit- 
ual teachers  were  sent  forth  to  the  world.    We  find  for 


114  THE  INNER  LIFE 

example  Lao-tse,  Confucius  and  Pythagoras,  all  work- 
ing in  their  different  spheres.  Advantage  was  taken 
of  the  stupendous  outpouring  of  spiritual  force  at  the 
time  to  send  forth  teachers  into  many  parts  of  the 
world. 


Christianity 

There  is  nothing  in  the  principles  of  Theosophy 
which  is  at  all  in  opposition  to  the  true  primitive 
Christianity,  though  there  may  be  statements  which 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  some  of  the  mistakes  of  mod- 
ern popular  theology.  This  modern  theology  attaches 
immense  importance  to  texts ;  in  fact  it  appears  to 
me  to  be  based  upon  one  or  two  texts  almost  entirely. 
It  takes  these  and  gives  to  them  a  particular  interpre- 
tation, often  in  direct  opposition  to  the  plain  meaning 
of  other  texts  from  the  same  bible.  Of  course  there 
are  contradictions  in  the  Christian  scripture  just  as 
there  must 'necessarily  be  in  any  book  of  that  size,  the 
various  parts  of  which  were  written  at  such  widely 
separated  periods  of  the  world's  history,  and  by  people 
so  unequal  in  knowledge  and  in  civilization. 

It  is  impossible  that  all  the  statements  made  in  it 
can  be  literally  true,  but  we  can  go  back  behind  them 
all,  and  try  to  find  out  what  the  original  teacher  did 
lay  before  His  pupils.  Since  there  are  many  contra- 
dictions and  many  interpretations  it  is  obviously  the 
duty  of  a  thinking  Christian  to  weigh  carefully  the 
different  versions  of  his  faith  which  exist  in  the  world, 
and  decide  between  them  according  to  his  own  reason 
and  common-sense. 

Every  Christian  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  decide  for 


CHRISTIANITY  115 

himself  now ;  he  chooses  to  be  a  Roman  Catholic,  or  a 
member  of  the  Church  of  England,  or  a  Methodist,  or 
a  Salvationist,  though  each  of  these  sects  professes 
to  have  the  only  genuine  brand  of  Christianity,  and 
justifies  its  claim  by  the  quotation  of  texts.  How  then 
does  the  ordinary  layman  decide  between  their  rival 
claims?  Either  he  accepts  blindly  the  faith  which  his 
father  held,  and  does  not  examine  the  matter  at  all, 
or  else  he  does  examine  it,  and  then  he  decides  by  the 
exercise  of  his  own  judgment. 

If  he  is  already  doing  that,  it  would  be  absurd  and 
inconsistent  for  him  to  refuse  to  examine  all  texts, 
instead  of  basing  his  belief  only  upon  one  or  two.  If 
he  does  impartially  examine  all  texts,  he  wTill  certainly 
find  many  which  support  Theosophical  truth.  He  will 
find  also  that  the  creeds  can  be  rationally  interpreted 
only  by  Theosophy.  Of  course  in  order  to  make  an 
intelligent  comparison  between  these  different  systems 
it  will  be  necessary  for  him  to  make  some  enquiries 
into  the  history  of  his  own  religion,  and  to  see  how 
the  Christian  doctrine  came  to  be  what  it  now  is. 

He  will  find  that  in  the  early  Christian  Church  there 
were  three  principal  divisions  or  parties.  There  were 
first  of  all  the  Gnostic  Doctors  or  teachers,  wise  and 
cultured  men  who  held  that  the  Christian  Church  had 
its  system  of  philosophy  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
great  Greek  and  Roman  systems  which  existed  at  that 
time.  They  said  that  this  system,  while  thoroughly 
comprehensive  and  very  beautiful,  was  difficult  to  un- 
derstand, and  therefore  they  did  not  recommend  its 
study  to  the  ignorant.  They  spoke  of  it  as  the  Gnosis 
or  knowledge — the  knowledge  which  was  possessed  by 
those  who  were  full  members  of  the  church,  but  was 
not  given  out  to  the  world  at  large,  and  not  even  told  to 
the  more  ignorant  members  of  the  church  while  they 


116  THE  INNER  LIFE 

were  in  that  preliminary  stage  when  they  could  not 
receive  the  sacraments. 

Then  there  was  the  second  division,  a  body  of  re- 
spectable middle-class  people,  who  troubled  themselves 
not  at  all  about  the  philosophy,  but  simply  were  content 
to  take  the  words  of  the  Christ  as  their  guide  in  life. 
They  used  as  a  sacred  book  a  collection  of  His  sayings, 
some  leaves  of  which  have  recently  been  discovered  by 
antiquarians. 

Then  there  was  unfortunately  a  great  mass  of  ignor- 
ant and  turbulent  people  who  never  had  any  grasp 
whatever  of  Christian  doctrine,  but  became  members 
of  the  church  merely  because  of  the  prophecies,  given 
by  the  Christ,  of  a  good  time  to  come.  He  was  very 
much  moved  by  the  sufferings  of  the  poor,  and  full  of 
compassion  and  pity  for  them.  He  told  them  con- 
stantly, in  His  teachings,  to  take  comfort,  because  the 
poor  man  who  endures  the  struggle  bravely  and  well 
will  in  the  future  have  a  better  position  and  greater 
advancement  than  the  rich  man  who  misuses  his 
opportunities.  One  can  readily  see  how  that  doctrine 
preached  to  an  exceedingly  ignorant  people  might  be 
taken  in  a  one-sided  manner.  They  would  take  the 
promises  and  not  the  conditions,  and  their  idea  of  that 
good  time  might  easily  be  that  they  in  turn  would  be 
the  oppressors  and  would  take  advantage  of  the  rich 
man — something  which  of  course  the  Christ  never 
preached.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  He  attracted  to  him- 
self a  great  crowd  of  men  who  for  various  reasons 
were  against  the  existing  government ;  and  when  these 
ignorant  people  in  turn  preached  what  they  called 
Christianity  to  others,  they  naturally  intensified  and 
exaggerated  their  own  misconceptions  of  it.  This 
great  mass  of  the  common  people,  who  called  them- 
selves "the  poor  men,"  speedily  became  a  vast  majority 


CHRISTIANITY  117 

of  the  infant  church,  and  gained  so  much  power  that 
they  were  eventually  able  to  throw  out  the  Gnostic  Doc- 
tors as  heretics ;  for  the  "poor  men"  resented  the  idea 
that  any  knowledge  which  they  did  not  possess  could 
be  regarded  as  an  essential  part  of  Christianity. 

There  is  yet  another  point  of  view  from  which  the 
Christian  may  find  Theosophy  of  the  greatest  use  to 
him.  Just  now  the  minds  of  many  orthodox  Christians 
are  much  exercised  with  regard  to  what  they  call  the 
higher  criticism — that  is,  the  attempt  to  apply  ordi- 
nary common-sense  and  scientific  methods  to  the  exam- 
ination of  the  religious  teaching — the  endeavour  to 
understand  religion  instead  of  blindly  believing  it.  For 
many  ages  the  world  has  been  told  that  ecclesiastical 
dogmas  must  be  swallowed  like  pills,  and  that  to  at- 
tempt to  reason  about  them  is  impious.  There  are 
many  men  in  the  world,  and  they  are  among  the  most 
intellectual  of  its  citizens,  who  simply  cannot  accept 
doctrines  thus  blindly  and  uncomprehendingly.  Before 
they  can  believe  they  must  to  some  extent  understand, 
and  a  statement  does  not  become  a  living  fact  to  them 
until  they  can  relate  it  rationally  to  other  facts,  and 
regard  it  as  part  of  a  more  or  less  comprehensive 
scheme  of  things. 

It  is  ridiculous  to  say  (as  some  of  the  orthodox  do) 
that  these  people  are  inherently  wicked  and  that  their 
attitude  is  inspired  by  the  devil.  On  the  contrary  they 
are  precisely  the  men  who  truly  appreciate  God's  great 
gift  of  reason,  and  are  determined  to  employ  it  in  the 
highest  of  all  possible  directions — for  the  elucidation  of 
the  truth  about  religion.  The  truth  is  that  the  critics 
are  of  the  greatest  possible  service  to  religion;  they 
are  clearing  up  points  in  it  which  heretofore  have  been 
vague ;  they  are  stating  with  accuracy  matters  in  con- 
nection with  it  which  were  previously  very  partially 


118  THE  INNER  LIFE 

understood ;  they  are  trying  to  make  a  reasonable  sys- 
tem out  of  what  has  until  now  been  nothing  but  a  mass 
of  meaningless  confusion. 

If  any  of  our  members  have  orthodox  friends  who 
are  disturbed  by  these  efforts,  who  fear  lest  this  liber- 
alizing and  rationalizing  of  their  faith  should  refine  it 
altogether  out  of  existence,  let  them  recommend  to  them 
the  teachings  of  Theosophy,  for  that  is  the  very  thing 
which  they  need.  It  will  teach  them  to  pause  before 
throwing  aside  ancestral  belief,  and  it  will  show  them 
that  when  properly  understood  that  belief  has  a  real 
meaning  and  a  real  foundation,  and  that,  while  some  of 
the  vagaries  of  mediaeval  ecclesiastical  dogma  may  be 
incomprehensible  and  incredible,  the  original  teaching 
of  the  Christ  was  a  magnificent  presentment  of  uni- 
versal truth. 

If  they  have  somewhat  outgrown  the  outer  form  of 
their  religion,  if  they  have  broken  through  the  chrysalis 
of  blind  faith,  and  mounted  on  the  wings  of  reason  and 
intuition  to  the  freer,  nobler  mental  life  of  more  ex- 
alted levels,  Theosophy  will  show  them  that  in  all  this 
there  has  been  no  loss,  but  a  great  and  glorious  gain. 
For  it  tells  them  that  the  glow  of  devotion  which  has 
meant  so  much  to  them  in  their  spiritual  life  is  more 
than  justified,  that  the  splendour  and  beauty  and  poetry 
of  religious  thought  exist  in  fuller  measure  than  they 
have  ever  hoped  before — no  longer  as  mere  pleasant 
dreams  from  which  the  cold  light  of  common-sense  may 
at  any  time  rudely  awaken  them,  but  as  truths  of 
nature  which  will  bear  investigation,  which  become 
only  brighter  and  more  perfect  as  they  are  more  accu- 
rately understood. 

Certainly  the  Christian  Bible  ought  not  to  be  taken 
literally,  for  many  of  its  statements  are  symbolical,  and 
others  are  simply  not  true.    When  we  examine  clair- 


CHRISTIANITY  119 

voyantly  the  life  of  the  founder  of  Christianity,  for 
example,  we  can  find  no  trace  of  the  alleged  twelve 
apostles ;  it  would  seem  that  as  men  they  never  existed, 
but  that  they  were  introduced  into  the  story  for  some 
reason — possibly  to  typify  the  twelve  signs  of  the 
zodiac.  The  disciple  Jesus,  whose  body  was  taken  by 
the  Christ,  was  not  an  illegitimate  son,  as  is  implied  in 
the  gospel,  nor  was  his  father  a  carpenter.  He  was  in 
reality  of  the  highest  aristocracy  of  the  Jews,  a  de- 
scendant of  their  own  old  royal  line.  He  may  however 
have  had  a  tinge  of  Aryan  blood  in  him,  which  would 
be  quite  enough  to  cause  the  exclusive  Jews  to  say  that 
he  was  not  legitimately  of  the  seed  of  David,  and  that 
statement  might  very  easily  be  taken  to  mean  such  an 
irregular  birth  as  is  suggested  by  the  narrative. 

The  truth  is  that  the  four  gospels  at  any  rate  were 
never  intended  to  be  taken  as  in  any  sense  historical. 
They  are  all  founded  upon  a  much  shorter  document 
written  in  Hebrew  by  a  monk  named  Matthseus,  who 
lived  in  a  monastery  in  a  desert  to  the  south  of  Pales- 
tine. He  seems  to  have  conceived  the  idea  of  casting 
some  of  the  great  facts  of  initiation  into  a  narrative 
form  and  mingling  with  it  some  points  out  of  the  life 
of  the  real  Jesus  who  was  born  105  B.  C,  and  some 
from  the  life  of  another  quite  obscure  fanatical 
preacher,  who  had  been  condemned  to  death  and  exe- 
cuted in  Jerusalem  about  30  A.  D. 

He  sent  this  document  to  a  great  friend  of  his  who 
was  the  chief  abbot  of  a  huge  monastery  at  Alexandria, 
and  suggested  to  him  that  he,  or  some  of  his  assistants, 
might  perhaps  recast  it,  and  issue  it  in  the  Greek  lan- 
guage. The  Alexandrian  abbot  seems  to  have  employed 
a  number  of  his  young  monks  upon  this  work,  allowing 
each  of  them  to  try  the  task  for  himself,  and  to  treat 
it  in  his  own  way.    A  number  of  documents  of  very 


120  THE  INNER  LIFE 

varying  merit  were  thus  produced,  each  incorporating 
in  his  story  more  or  less  of  the  original  manuscript  of 
Matthaeus,  but  each  also  adding  to  it  such  legends  as 
he  happened  to  know,  or  as  his  taste  and  fancy  dictated. 
Four  of  these  still  survive  to  us,  and  to  them  are  at- 
tached the  names  of  the  monks  who  wrote  them,  Mat- 
thew, Mark,  Luke  and  John.  The  splendid  passage 
with  which  the  gospel  of  St.  John  opens  was  not 
original  but  quoted,  for  we  found  it  in  existence  many 
years  before  the  time  of  the  Christ  in  a  manuscript 
which  was  even  then  of  hoary  antiquity. 

It  was  associated  in  that  manuscript  with  a  quota- 
tion from  the  Stanzas  of  Dzyan,  this  latter  also  being 
translated  into  Greek. 


Sin 


You  ask  what  is  the  real  meaning  of  sin.  In  the 
sense  in  which  the  word  is  ordinarily  employed,  at  least 
by  Christian  preachers,  I  think  sin  may  be  defined  as 
a  figment  of  the  theological  imagination.  It  is  popu- 
larly supposed  to  indicate  a  defiance  of  divine  law — 
the  performance  of  some  action  which  the  actor  knows 
to  be  wrong.  It  is  exceedingly  doubtful  whether  this 
phenomenon  ever  occurs.  In  almost  every  conceivable 
case  man  breaks  the  law  through  ignorance  or  heedless- 
ness, and  not  of  deliberate  intention.  When  once  a 
man  really  knows  and  sees  the  divine  intention  he 
inevitably  comes  into  harmony  with  it,  for  two  reasons : 
at  an  earlier  stage  because  he  sees  the  utter  futility  of 
doing  otherwise,  and  later  because,  seeing  the  glory  and 
beauty  of  the  design,  he  cannot  but  throw  himself  into 
its  execution  with  all  the  powers  of  his  heart  and  soul. 


THE  POPE  121 

One  of  the  most  serious  of  the  many  misconceptions 
which  we  have  inherited  from  the  dark  ages  is  that 
what  is  called  "sin"  is  a  perversity  to  be  met  with  pun- 
ishment and  savage  persecution,  instead  of  what  it 
really  is,  the  result  of  a  condition  of  ignorance  that  can 
only  be  dealt  with  by  enlightenment  and  education.  It 
may  be  objected  that  in  daily  life  we  constantly  see 
people  doing  what  they  must  know  to  be  wrong,  but 
this  is  a  misstatement  of  the  case.  They  are  doing 
what  they  have  been  told  is  wrong,  which  is  quite  a  dif- 
ferent matter.  If  a  man  really  knows  that  an  action  is 
wrong,  and  that  it  will  inevitably  be  followed  by  evil 
consequences,  he  is  careful  to  avoid  it.  A  man  really 
knoivs  that  fire  will  burn  him ;  therefore  he  does  not  put 
his  hand  into  it.  He  has  been  told  that  the  fire  of  hell 
will  burn  him  as  the  result  of  a  certain  action — say 
playing  cards  on  a  Sunday — but  he  does  not  really 
know  this,  and  therefore  when  he  feels  the  inclination 
to  play  cards  he  does  so  in  spite  of  the  threatened  con- 
sequences. It  will  be  found  that  every  one  who  does 
wrong  justifies  the  wrong  action  to  himself  at  the  time 
of  its  commission,  whatever  he  may  think  about  it 
afterwards  in  cold  blood.  So  I  say  that  sin  as  ordi- 
narily understood  is  a  figment  of  the  theological  imag- 
ination ;  what  really  exists  is  an  unfortunate  condition 
of  ignorance  which  often  leads  to  infraction  of  the 
divine  Law.  This  ignorance  it  is  our  duty  to  endeavour 
to  dispel  by  the  light  of  Theosophy. 


The  Pope 

A  magnificent  opportunity  is  waiting  for  the  Pope 
who  shall  be  ready  and  brave  enough  to  take  it.  In- 
stead of  fulminating  rescripts  and  bulls  against  The- 


122  THE  INNER  LIFE 

osophy  and  liberalism,  he  might  himself  propound  the 
Theosophical  interpretation  of  Christianity.  Remem- 
ber that  the  Catholic  Church  possesses  what  is  called 
the  doctrine  of  development,  and  also  that  it  has  pro- 
claimed the  Pope  to  be  the  infallible  exponent  of  divine 
doctrine,  the  vicegerent  of  God  upon  earth.  He  would 
therefore  be  perfectly  within  his  rights  if,  with  regard 
to  the  Theosophical  interpretation,  he  should  pronounce 
quite  boldly: 

"Certainly  this  which  you  bring  forward  is  the  true 
meaning  of  Christian  doctrine.  We  have  always  known 
this,  and  we  have  plenty  of  manuscripts  in  the  Vatican 
Library  to  prove  it.  We  did  not  tell  you  this  before, 
because  all  through  the  ages  until  now  men  have  not 
been  fit  for  such  a  revelation.  They  have  been  too 
crude,  too  rough,  too  undeveloped  to  understand  a  phil- 
osophical and  mystical  interpretation.  The  outer  husk 
of  the  religion  has  been  all  that  could  usefully  be  offered 
to  them.  Now  one  stage  more  has  been  attained  and 
the  world  is  ready  for  this  further  revelation.  The 
second  and  inner  meaning  of  our  doctrine  is  therefore 
put  before  you,  and  while  we  must  not  condemn  those 
who  are  still  at  the  stage  when  they  must  cling  to  the 
outer  husk,  neither  must  they  on  their  part  be  allowed 
to  condemn  those  who  are  ready  to  take  the  further 
step  and  to  receive  a  higher  illumination." 

But  of  course  he  must  indeed  be  a  strong  as  well  as  a 
wise  man  who  should  do  this,  for  like  all  other  great 
personages  the  Pope  is  surrounded  by  enormous  masses 
of  thought-forms,  and  he  would  find  it  a  matter  of 
extreme  difficulty  to  break  through  these  and  make  a 
new  departure. 


CEREMONIAL  123 


Ceremonial 


The  line  of  ceremonial  is  one  along  which  many  peo- 
ple come,  but  of  course  it  must  be  understood  that  no 
religious  ceremonial  whatever  is  ever  really  essential, 
and  the  man  who  wishes  to  enter  upon  the  Path  of 
Holiness  must  realize  this  fully  and  must  cast  off  belief 
in  the  necessity  of  ceremonies,  as  one  of  the  fetters 
which  hold  him  back  from  nirvana.  This  does  not 
mean  that  ceremonies  may  not  be  sometimes  quite  ef- 
fective in  producing  the  results  which  are  intended, 
but  only  that  they  are  never  really  necessary  for  any 
one,  and  that  the  candidate  for  higher  progress  must 
learn  to  do  utterly  without  them.  The  ceremonial  line 
is  an  easy  road  for  a  certain  type  of  people,  and  is 
really  helpful  and  uplifting  for  them ;  but  there  is  an- 
other type  of  men  who  always  feel  ceremonial  as  an 
obstacle  between  themselves  and  the  deities  which  they 
wish  to  reach. 

In  Christianity  this  ceremonial  line  is  the  one  ap- 
pointed by  its  founder,  through  which  his  magic  is  to 
work.  The  consecration  of  the  host,  for  example,  is  a 
means  by  which  spiritual  force  is  poured  out  over  the 
people.  There  is  often  a  vast  amount  of  devotional 
feeling  at  the  moment  of  the  consecration,  and  the 
working  of  the  magic  is  assisted  by  that,  though  it  does 
not  depend  upon  it.  Those  who  are  devotional  unques- 
tionably receive  more  because  they  bring  with  them  an 
additional  faculty  of  reception.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  always  the  probability  that  ignorant  devotion 
will  degenerate  into  superstition.  In  a  recent  enquiry 
into  these  matters  from  the  occult  point  of  view,  made 
in  Sicily,  I  found  that  there  was  certainly  plenty  of 
superstition,  and  much  harmful  interference  in  family 
matters  on  the  part  of  the  priests ;  but  still  on  the  whole 


124  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  country  was  distinctly  better  than  it  would  have 
been  without  it.  We  should  remember  also  that  in  his- 
tory we  usually  hear  much  of  the  worst  effects  of  relig- 
ious enthusiasm,  whereas  the  good  steady  progress  of 
many  thousands  under  its  influence  makes  but  little 
impression. 


Prayer 


It  is  difficult  to  say  anything  on  the  question  of 
prayer  that  would  be  universally  applicable,  because 
there  are  such  very  different  kinds  of  prayer  and  they 
are  addressed  to  beings  who  differ  very  widely  in  evo- 
lution. The  founders  of  most  great  religions  never  in 
any  way  encouraged  their  followers  to  pray  to  them, 
and  as  a  rule  the  latter  have  been  far  too  enlightened 
to  do  anything  of  the  kind.  Whether  a  very  strong 
thought  directed  towards  them  would  reach  them  or 
not  would  depend  upon  the  line  of  evolution  which  they 
have  since  followed — in  fact  upon  whether  they  still 
remain  within  touch  of  this  earth  or  not.  If  they  were 
still  so  within  reach,  and  if  such  a  thought  did  reach 
them,  it  is  probable  that  if  they  saw  that  it  would  be 
good  for  the  thinker  that  any  notice  should  be  taken 
they  would  turn  in  his  direction  the  attention  of  some 
of  their  pupils  who  are  still  upon  earth.  But  it  is  quite 
inconceivable  that  a  man  who  had  any  sort  of  concep- 
tion of  the  magnificent  far-reaching  work  done  for  evo- 
lution by  the  Great  Ones  on  higher  planes  could  dream 
of  intruding  his  own  petty  concerns  upon  Their  notice ; 
he  could  not  but  know  that  any  kind  of  help  that  he 
required  would  be  far  more  fitly  given  to  him  by  some- 
one nearer  to  his  own  level.  Even  down  here  on  this 
physical  plane  we  are  wiser  than  that,  for  we  do  not 


PRAYER  125 

waste  the  time  of  the  greatest  scholars  of  our  univer- 
sities in  helping  babies  over  the  difficulties  of  the 
alphabet. 

As  regards  the  saints  of  any  of  the  churches  the  posi- 
tion is  different,  though  even  with  them  the  ability  to 
hear  prayers  will  depend  upon  their  position  in  evolu- 
tion. The  ordinary  saint,  who  is  simply  a  good  and 
holy  man,  will  of  course  take  his  heaven-life  as  usual, 
and  will  probably  take  a  long  one.  His  life  on  the 
astral  plane  would  be  likely  to  be  but  short,  and  it 
would  be  only  during  that  that  it  would  be  possible  for 
a  prayer  to  reach  him  and  attract  his  attention.  If 
during  that  time  it  did  so  reach  him,  no  doubt  he  would 
do  anything  that  he  could  to  satisfy  the  petitioner; 
but  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  it  would  attract  his 
attention,  for  he  would  naturally  be  fully  occupied  with 
his  new  surroundings. 

When  he  entered  upon  his  long  rest  in  the  heaven- 
world  he  would  be  entirely  beyond  any  possibility  of 
being  disturbed  by  earthly  things ;  yet  even  in  such  a 
case  a  prayer  to  him  might  not  be  without  effect  in  con- 
nection with  him.  Such  a  man  would  almost  certainly 
be  pouring  out  a  constant  stream  of  loving  thought 
towards  humanity,  and  this  thought  would  be  a  real 
and  potent  shower  of  blessing,  tending  generally  to- 
wards the  spiritual  helping  of  those  upon  whom  it  fell ; 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  man  who  was  earnestly 
thinking  of  or  praying  to  that  saint  would  come  into 
rapport  with  him,  and  would  therefore  draw  down 
upon  himself  a  great  deal  of  that  force,  though  entirely 
without  the  knowledge  of  the  saint  from  whom  it  came. 
If  the  saint  were  sufficiently  advanced  to  have  entered 
upon  a  special  series  of  births  rapidly  following  one 
another  the  case  would  be  different  again.  He  would 
then  be  all  the  time  within  reach  of  earth,  either  living 


126  THE  INNER  LIFE 

on  the  astral  plane  or  in  incarnation  upon  the  physical, 
and  if  the  prayer  were  strong  enough  to  attract  his 
attention  at  any  time  when  he  was  for  a  moment  out 
of  his  body,  he  would  probably  give  any  help  in  his 
power. 

But  fortunately  for  the  many  thousands  who  are 
constantly  pouring  forth  their  souls  in  prayer — in  the 
blindest  ignorance,  of  course,  but  still  in  perfect  good 
faith — there  is  something  else  to  depend  upon  which 
is  independent  of  all  these  considerations.  Shri 
Krishna  tells  us,  in  the  Bhagavad  Gita,  how  all  true 
prayers  come  to  Him,  to  whomsoever  they  may  have 
been  ignorantly  offered ;  there  is  a  consciousness  wide 
enough  to  comprehend  all,  which  never  fails  in  its  re- 
sponse to  any  earnest  effort  in  the  direction  of  an 
increased  spirituality.  It  works  through  many  means ; 
sometimes  perhaps  by  directing  the  attention  of  a  deva 
to  the  suppliant,  sometimes  through  the  agency  of  those 
human  helpers  who  work  upon  the  astral  or  mental 
planes  for  the  good  of  humanity.  Such  a  deva  or  helper 
so  used  would,  if  he  showed  himself,  inevitably  be  taken 
by  the  petitioner  for  the  saint  to  whom  he  had  prayed, 
and  there  are  many  stories  which  illustrate  this. 

I  myself,  for  example,  have  been  taken  under  such 
circumstances  for  S.  Philip  Neri,  and  a  junior  helper 
who  was  with  me  on  the  occasion  was  supposed  to  be 
S.  Stanislaus  Kostka.  Our  President,  too,  has  more 
than  once  been  regarded  as  an  angel  by  those  whom  she 
wras  assisting. 


The  Devil 

The  devil  is  non-existent.  There  are  persons  who 
imagine  themselves  to  have  made  pacts  with  him,  some- 
times signed  with  their  own  blood.    The  result  depends 


THE  DEVIL  127 

largely  upon  what  sort  of  entity  happened  to  person- 
ate him  for  the  occasion.  There  are  plenty  of  creatures 
of  various  sorts  who  would  hugely  enjoy  such  a  joke 
at  the  expense  of  a  man ;  but  no  such  entity,  whatever 
he  may  be,  could  possibly  have  any  use  for  the  "soul" 
of  a  man — nor  would  the  "soul"  of  anybody  foolish 
enough  to  make  such  a  compact  be  likely  to  be  of  any 
use,  either  to  the  owner  or  anybody  else.  All  these 
absurd  superstitions  are  disproved  by  the  fact  that  the 
man  is  the  ego,  and  therefore  cannot  sell  himself,  and 
also  that  there  are  no  buyers  in  such  a  transaction ;  so 
the  whole  thing  is  nothing  but  foolishness. 

There  are  many  entities  who  may  be  both  willing 
and  able  to  arrange  twenty  years  of  material  pros- 
perity for  a  person.  They  are  generally  willing  to  do  it 
in  return  for  some  material  consideration,  such  as  the 
sacrifice  of  babies,  goats  or  fowls.  The  ego  has  no 
share  in  these  pacts,  either  in  the  rare  individual  cases, 
or  in  general  fetish  worship.  These  entities  cannot 
possess  the  human  ego,  nor  could  they  use  it  if  it  could 
come  into  their  possession.  A  human  body  is  some- 
times convenient  for  them,  and  for  the  sake  of  being 
permitted  to  obsess  it  they  will  sometimes  enter  into 
an  arrangement.  The  making  of  a  compact  of  this 
nature  gives  the  entity  a  strong  hold  upon  the  man ;  but 
as  soon  as  he  discovers  the  folly  of  his  action,  the 
proper  course  for  the  man  to  take  is  to  resist  such 
obsession  to  the  utmost.  Childish  ceremonies,  such  as 
signing  with  his  own  blood,  would  of  course  make  no 
difference  whatever. 

There  is  no  hierarchy  of  evil.  There  are  black  magi- 
cians certainly,  but  the  black  magician  is  usually  merely 
a  single  solitary  entity.  He  is  working  for  himself, 
as  a  separate  entity,  and  for  his  own  ends.  You  can- 
not have  a  hierarchy  of  people  who  distrust  one  an- 


128  THE  INNER  LIFE 

other.  In  the  White  Brotherhood  every  member  trusts 
the  others;  but  you  cannot  have  trust  with  the  dark 
people,  because  their  interests  are  built  upon  self. 

You  must,  however,  take  care  what  you  mean  when 
you  speak  of  evil.  The  principle  of  destruction  is  often 
personified,  but  it  is  only  that  old  forms  are  broken 
down  to  be  used  as  material  for  building  new  and 
higher  ones.  Here  in  India  there  is  Shiva,  the  De- 
stroyer, but  no  one  would  think  of  Him  as  evil ;  He  is 
one  of  the  highest  manifestations  of  the  deity.  The 
principle  of  the  destruction  of  forms  is  necessary  in 
order  that  life  may  progress.  There  is  a  Great  One,  a 
part  of  whose  function  it  is  to  arrange  when  the  great 
cataclysms  shall  take  place — but  He  works  for  the  good 
of  the  world.  These  things  are  not  to  be  thought  of  as 
in  any  way  evil.  The  notion  of  a  supposed  angel  who 
revolted  and  was  turned  out  of  heaven  is  very  much 
based  upon  John  Milton.  The  conception  is  not  at  all 
the  same  in  the  Book  of  Job.  In  that  story  the  devil  is 
quite  a  different  person  from  the  gloomy  hero  in  the 
Miltonic  conception.  Then  the  Buddhists  have  Mara — 
a  personification  of  the  karma  of  the  past  descending 
upon  the  man  at  once  and  taking  many  forms.  There 
is  an  instant  working-out  of  karma  upon  the  attain- 
ment of  enlightenment. 

The  statement  that  all  material  things,  all  differences 
and  limitations  are  evil  is  misleading.  If  by  evil  you 
mean  what  is  ordinarily  connoted  by  that  word,  and 
not  some  other  and  quite  different  notion  of  an  abstract 
kind,  then  matter  is  not  evil.  Spirit  and  matter  are 
equal.  Matter  is  not  in  opposition  to  spirit.  We  find 
matter  troublesome  because  of  the  bodies  we  have  to 
use;  but  we  are  here  in  order  to  learn  what  without 
the  physical  life  could  not  be  conveyed  to  us.  The  phys- 
ical plane  experiences  give  a  definiteness  and  precision 


HINDUISM  129 

to  our  consciousness  and  powers  which  we  could  never 
acquire  on  any  plane  unless  we  had  spent  the  necessary 
time  on  this.  But  why  do  people  bother  about  evil? 
There  is  plenty  of  good  in  the  world,  and  it  is  better  to 
think  of  that,  for  your  thought  strengthens  that  of 
which  you  think.  To  think  and  talk  so  much  about 
black  magicians  unquestionably  attracts  their  atten- 
tion to  you,  and  the  results  are  often  exceedingly 
undesirable. 


Hinduism 

When  ignorant  missionaries  dilate  upon  the  three 
hundred  and  thirty  million  gods  of  the  Hindus  they 
are  making  a  very  gross  misrepresentation  of  a  religion 
which  is  far  more  scientific  than  their  own.  Hinduism, 
like  every  other  religion,  knows  perfectly  well  that 
there  can  be  only  one  God,  though  there  may  be  count- 
less manifestations  of  Him.  To  call  these  "gods"  is  of 
course  ridiculous.  It  is  perhaps  better  to  avoid  the 
word  "god"  altogether,  because  of  the  exceedingly  un- 
pleasant ideas  which  have  been  associated  with  it  by 
the  Christians ;  but  if  it  is  to  be  used,  at  least  it  should 
never  be  applied  to  any  being  lower  than  the  Logos 
of  the  solar  system.  All  the  good  things  attributed  to 
the  Christian  God  are  true  of  the  Logos  ;  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  system  that  is  not  He,  and  yet  He  is  much 
more  than  His  system.  We  could  not  possibly  grasp 
the  truth  about  the  Absolute;  anything  which  we  are 
able  to  grasp  must  after  all  be  small,  since  our  minds 
are  so  small.  The  advice  of  the  Lord  Buddha  to  His 
people  was  always  that  they  should  not  trouble  them- 
selves about  such  remote  matters,  since  it  was  impos- 
sible to  arrive  at  any  conclusion,  and  nothing  useful 
came  from  it. 


130  THE  INNER  LIFE 

The  images  of  the  Indian  deities  are  usually  highly- 
magnetized,  and  when  they  are  carried  round  the 
streets  at  the  festivals  their  influence  upon  the  people  is 
unquestionably  productive  of  much  good.  In  many  of 
the  Hindu  temples  there  are  strong  permanent  influ- 
ences at  work,  as  is  the  case  for  example  at  Madura. 
Once  when  I  visited  that  city  some  white  ashes  from 
the  temple  of  Shiva  were  given  to  me,  and  also  a  bright 
crimson  powder  from  the  temple  of  Parvati,  and  I 
found  that  both  of  these  were  so  powerfully  magnet- 
ized as  to  retain  their  influence  for  some  years  and 
after  much  travelling. 

India  is  essentially  a  country  of  rites  and  ceremonies. 
The  religion  is  full  of  them,  and  a  great  many  of  them 
are  said  to  have  been  prescribed  by  the  Manu  Him- 
self, though  it  is  quite  obvious  that  many  others  have 
been  added  at  a  much  later  date.  Some  of  them  ap- 
pear to  be  regulations  such  as  would  be  quite  necessary 
at  the  beginning  of  a  new  race,  but  now  that  it  is  thor- 
oughly established  it  seems  clear  that  they  are  use- 
less. In  many  cases  when  one  watches  their  perform- 
ance one  can  see  quite  clearly  what  must  originally 
have  been  intended,  even  though  now  the  ceremony 
has  become  a  mere  empty  shell,  and  no  result  follows 
upon  it.  Such  things  are  not  without  their  value  for 
younger  souls;  indeed  there  are  many  who  delight  in 
them  and  obtain  great  benefit  from  them ;  but  of  course 
none  of  them  can  ever  be  really  necessary,  and  all  such 
bondage  falls  away  altogether  from  the  really  developed 
man. 

Originally  every  householder  was  the  priest  of  his 
own  family,  but  as  the  civilization  became  more  com- 
plex the  rites  and  ceremonies  grew  more  complex  also, 
and  therefore  a  class  of  specially  instructed  priests  had 
to  spring  up,  because  no  one  who  had  anything  else 


HINDUISM  131 

to  do  could  possibly  remember  the  wealth  of  unneces- 
sary detail.  In  these  days  it  would  seem  that  most 
people  perform  them,  or  have  them  performed  for 
them,  much  in  the  same  spirit  as  they  take  medicine 
from  a  doctor,  without  understanding  what  it  is,  but 
with  the  faith  that  it  will  somehow  do  them  good. 
There  are,  however,  many  people  who  cannot  put  heart 
and  soul  into  a  ceremony  unless  they  do  understand 
it,  and  these  people  usually  end  by  breaking  away  from 
ceremonies  altogether. 

It  is  sad  to  see  priests  performing  the  old  ceremonies 
and  using  the  old  forms  which  once  were  so  effective, 
and  yet  producing  no  result  worth  mentioning.  There 
seems  to  be  no  will  in  these  days.  They  commence 
some  of  their  recitations  "Om,  Bhur,  Bhuvar,  Swar" ; 
but  nothing  whatever  happens  when  they  recite  the 
words.  In  the  old  days  the  officiant  who  said  this  threw 
some  will  into  it,  and  raised  his  own  consciousness, 
as  well  as  that  of  those  present  who  were  responsive, 
from  one  plane  to  the  other  as  he  spoke. 

I  remember  seeing  this  strongly  exemplified  in  the 
performance  of  a  striking  ceremony,  when  we  were 
examining  one  of  the  earlier  lives  which  occurred  many 
thousands  of  years  ago  here  in  India.  The  people  all 
entered  an  inner  room  and  stood  in  absolute  darkness. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  ceremony  the  officiant  slowly 
and  solemnly  uttered  those  words,  and  each  produced 
its  due  effect  upon  the  majority  of  those  who  stood 
around  him.  The  word  "Om"  brought  all  the  people 
in  close  harmony  with  him,  and  with  the  feelings  which 
filled  his  mind.  Then,  at  the  utterance  of  the  word 
"Bhur,"  to  their  senses  the  room  was  filled  with  ordi- 
nary light,  and  they  were  able  to  see  all  the  physical 
objects  in  it ;  when,  after  an  interval,  the  second  word 
came,  astral  sight  was  temporarily  opened  for  them; 


132  THE  INNER  LIFE 

and  the  third  word  produced  the  same  effect  upon 
their  mental  sight,  and  brought  round  them  all  the 
bliss  and  power  of  the  higher  plane,  and  that  condi- 
tion persisted  during  the  recitation  of  the  various 
verses  which  followed. 

Of  course  these  effects  were  only  temporary,  and 
when  the  ceremony  was  over  the  higher  consciousness 
faded  away  from  those  who  had  taken  part  in  it,  but 
nevertheless  it  remained  for  them  a  tremendous  ex- 
perience, and  the  effect  of  it  was  that  on  another  simi- 
lar occasion  this  higher  consciousness  was  more  read- 
ily and  more  fully  aroused  in  them.  But  now  nothing 
of  this  sort  seems  to  be  done  anywhere.  Now  the  priest 
arranges  his  fuel  and  utters  a  solemn  invocation  to 
Agni,  and  then — lights  the  fire  with  a  match!  In  the 
old  days  that  which  is  represented  by  Agni  really  did 
come,  and  the  fire  fell  from  heaven,  to  use  an  old  ex- 
pression.    But  all  outer  husks  seem  to  remain. 

There  is  a  quite  rational  and  scientific  idea  under- 
lying the  practice  of  pilgrimage.  Great  shrines  are 
usually  erected  on  the  spot  where  some  holy  man  has 
lived  or  where  some  great  event  has  happened  (such 
as  an  initiation)  or  else  in  connection  with  some  relic 
of  a  great  person.  In  any  one  of  these  cases  a  power- 
ful magnetic  centre  of  influence  has  been  created,  which 
will  persist  for  thousands  of  years.  Any  sensitive 
person  who  approaches  the  spot  will  feel  this  influence, 
and  its  effect  upon  him  is  unquestionably  good.  Where 
there  is  a  strong  vibration  at  a  much  higher  level  than 
any  attained  by  ordinary  humanity,  its  action  upon  any 
man  who  comes  within  its  influence  is  to  raise  his  own 
vibrations  for  the  time  towards  unison  with  it. 

The  pilgrim  who  comes  to  such  a  spot  and  bathes 
himself  in  its  magnetism,  perhaps  for  several  days  to- 
gether, is  certainly  the  better  for  it,  although  differ- 


CASTES  133 

ent  people  will  be  affected  in  different  degrees,  accord- 
ing to  their  power  of  receptivity.  Such  a  place  of 
pilgrimage  is  the  Bodhi  tree  at  Buddha-gaya,  the  spot 
where  the  Lord  Gautama  attained  His  Buddhahood. 
This  is  true  although  the  tree  which  is  there  now  is 
not  the  original  one.  That  fell  some  time  in  the  middle 
ages,  and  the  present  tree  is  only  an  offshoot  from  it. 
But  nevertheless  the  tremendously  strong  magnetism 
of  the  spot  remains  and  is  likely  to  do  so  for  many  a 
century  yet  to  come. 


Castes 


It  is  said  that  originally  each  caste  had  its  distinc- 
tive colour;  indeed,  the  actual  meaning  of  varna  (the 
Sanskrit  word  for  caste)  is  colour.  I  have  not  studied 
the  question,  but  at  least  it  is  clear  that  the  colours 
which  are  usually  given  do  not  indicate  in  any  way 
the  auras  of  the  people.  Only  a  young  child  has  a  white 
aura,  and  even  the  adepts  have  various  colours  in  Their 
tremendous  glow;  yet  for  some  reason  the  brahman 
is  traditionally  mentioned  as  white.  A  kshattriya  is 
said  to  have  some  connection  with  the  colour  red ;  there 
are  several  reds  in  the  human  aura,  from  the  rose  of 
affection  to  the  scarlet  of  anger  and  indignation,  and 
the  brown-reds  of  sensuality.  But  the  kshattriya  has 
no  more  of  these  than  other  men.  Yellow  is  tradition- 
ally ascribed  to  the  vaishya.  But  yellow  in  the  aura 
signifies  intellect,  and  we  have  no  reason  to  consider 
the  vaishya  especially  endowed  with  this  quality.  A 
shudra  is  spoken  of  as  black. 

If  we  adopt  the  suggestion  that  these  colours  had  to 
do  with  the  ancient  and  primitive  races,  we  shall  find 


134  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  facts  more  tractable.  The  Aryans,  representing 
the  brahman  caste,  were  undoubtedly  much  lighter  in 
colour  than  the  people  amongst  whom  they  came.  The 
reddish  Toltec  people  who  were  ruling  large  portions 
of  the  land  when  the  Aryan  invasion  took  place  may 
have  some  connection  with  the  original  kshattriya 
caste.  The  aboriginals,  who  were  Lemurians,  and  are 
now  only  represented  by  some  of  the  hill  tribes,  were 
almost  black  in  colour.  They  may  be  connected  with 
the  shudras.  Between  them  and  the  Toltecs  there  ap- 
pear to  have  been  several  waves  of  different  Atlantean 
sub-races  who  settled  down  as  traders ;  and  these  men 
were  of  a  yellowish  colour,  as  is  the  present  day  China- 
man.    Perhaps  they  were  the  original  vaishyas. 

No  doubt  as  we  carry  further  and  further  back  the 
investigations  which  we  are  making  in  connection  with 
the  lines  of  past  lives  which  are  now  being  examined, 
we  shall  obtain  more  definite  information  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  origin  of  these  castes,  and  of  this  question 
of  their  relation  to  colour. 


Spiritualism 

Never  forget  that  the  spiritualists  are  entirely  with 
us  on  some  most  important  points.  They  all  hold  (a) 
life  after  death  as  an  actual  vivid  ever-present  cer- 
tainty, and  (b)  eternal  progress  and  ultimate  happi- 
ness for  everyone,  good  and  bad  alike.  Now  these  two 
items  are  of  such  tremendous,  such  paramount  im- 
portance— they  constitute  so  enormous  an  advance 
from  the  ordinary  orthodox  position — that  I  for  one 
should  be  well  content  to  join  hands  with  them  on  such 


SPIRITUALISM  135 

a  platform,  and  postpone  the  discussion  of  the  minor 
points  upon  which  we  differ  until  we  have  converted 
the  world  at  large  to  that  much  of  the  truth.  I  always 
feel  that  there  is  plenty  of  room  for  both  of  us. 

People  who  want  to  see  phenomena,  people  who  can- 
not believe  anything  without  ocular  demonstration,  will 
obtain  no  satisfaction  with  us,  while  from  the  spirit- 
ualists they  will  get  exactly  what  they  want.  On  the 
other  hand,  people  who  want  more  philosophy  than 
spiritualism  usually  provides  will  naturally  gravitate 
in  our  direction.  Those  who  admire  the  average 
trance-address  certainly  would  not  appreciate  Theoso- 
phy,  while  those  who  enjoy  Theosophical  teaching 
would  never  be  satisfied  with  the  trance-address.  We 
both  cater  for  the  liberal,  the  open-minded,  but  for 
quite  different  types  of  them ;  meantime,  we  surely  need 
not  quarrel. 

In  what  Madame  Blavatsky  wrote  on  the  subject  she 
laid  great  stress  on  the  utter  uncertainty  of  the  whole 
thing,  and  the  preponderance  of  personations  over  real 
appearances.  My  own  personal  experience  has  been 
more  favourable  than  that.  I  spent  some  years  in  ex- 
perimenting with  spiritualism,  and  I  suppose  there  is 
hardly  a  phenomenon  of  which  you  may  read  in  the 
books  which  I  have  not  repeatedly  seen.  I  have  encoun- 
tered many  personations,  but  still  in  my  experience  a 
distinct  majority  of  the  apparitions  have  been  genuine, 
and  therefore  I  am  bound  to  bear  testimony  to  the  fact. 
The  messages  which  they  give  are  often  uninteresting, 
and  their  religious  teaching  is  usually  Christianity  and 
water,  but  still  it  is  liberal  as  far  as  it  goes,  and  any- 
thing is  an  advance  upon  the  bigoted  orthodox  position. 

Not  that  some  spiritualists  are  not  bigoted  also — 
narrow  and  intolerant  as  any  sectarian — when  it  comes 
to  discussing  (say)  the  question  of  reincarnation !    The 


136  THE  INNER  LIFE 

majority  of  English  and  American  spiritualists  do  not 
yet  know  of  that  fact,  but  the  French  spiritists,  the  fol- 
lowers of  Allan  Kardec,  hold  it,  and  also  the  school  of 
Madame  d'Esperance  in  England.  Many  students  won- 
der that  dead  people  should  not  all  know  and  recognize 
the  fact  of  reincarnation;  but  after  all  why  should 
they?  When  a  man  dies  he  resorts  to  the  company  of 
those  whom  he  has  known  on  earth;  he  moves  among 
exactly  the  same  kind  of  people  as  during  physical  life. 
The  average  country  grocer  is  no  more  likely  after 
death  than  before  it  to  come  into  contact  with  any  one 
who  can  give  him  information  about  reincarnation. 
Most  men  are  shut  in  from  all  new  ideas  by  a  host  of 
prejudices;  they  carry  these  prejudices  into  the  astral 
world  with  them,  and  are  no  more  amenable  to  reason 
and  common  sense  there  than  here. 

True,  a  man  who  is  really  open-minded  can  learn  a 
great  deal  on  the  astral  plane ;  he  may  speedily  acquaint 
himself  with  the  whole  of  the  Theosophical  teaching, 
and  there  are  dead  men  who  do  this.  Therefore  it  often 
happens  that  scraps  of  Theosophy  are  found  among 
spirit  communications.  We  must  not  forget  that  there 
is  a  higher  spiritualism  of  which  the  public  knows 
nothing,  which  never  publishes  any  account  of  its  re- 
sults. The  best  circles  of  all  are  strictly  private — 
restricted  entirely  to  one  family,  or  to  a  small  number 
of  friends.  In  such  circles  the  same  people  meet  over 
and  over  again,  and  no  outsider  is  ever  admitted  to 
make  any  change  in  the  magnetism ;  so  the  conditions 
set  up  are  singularly  perfect,  and  the  results  obtained 
are  of  the  most  surprising  character.  At  public  seances, 
to  which  any  one  may  be  admitted  on  payment,  an 
altogether  lower  class  of  dead  people  appear,  because 
of  the  promiscuous  jumble  of  inharmonious  mag- 
netisms. 


SYMBOLOGY  137 

Symbology 

Symbology  is  a  very  interesting  study.  To  a  certain 
type  of  mind  everything  expresses  itself  in  symbols, 
and  to  some  people  they  are  of  the  greatest  possible 
help.  I  myself  do  not  happen  to  be  of  that  type,  and 
therefore  I  have  not  paid  special  attention  to  them  or 
made  any  particular  study  of  them.  Some  of  them 
however  are  obvious,  and  readily  comprehensible  to 
any  one  who  understands  even  a  little  of  the  principles 
of  their  interpretation.  Think,  for  example,  of  those 
which  appear  on  the  earlier  pages  of  The  Book  of 
Dzyan.  On  the  first  page  is  a  white  disc,  signifying  the 
condition  of  the  unmanif ested ;  on  the  second  page  a 
spot  appears  in  the  centre  of  the  white  disc,  signifying 
the  first  manifestation — the  First  Logos,  or  the  Christ 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Father ;  on  the  third  page  this  spot 
has  expanded  into  a  bar,  dividing  the  disc  into  two 
halves  and  so  signifying  the  first  great  separation  into 
spirit  and  matter — also  the  Second  Logos,  always 
spoken  of  as  dual  or  androgynous ;  on  the  fourth  page 
another  bar  has  appeared  at  right  angles  to  the  first, 
giving  us  the  forms  of  a  circle  divided  into  four  equal 
parts  or  quarters,  signifying  the  emergence  of  the 
Third  Logos,  though  He  is  still  in  a  condition  of  in- 
activity. On  the  next  page  the  outer  circle  falls  away, 
leaving  us  the  equal-armed  or  Greek  cross.  This  de- 
notes the  Third  Logos  ready  for  action,  just  about  to 
descend  into  the  matter  of  His  cosmos. 

The  next  stage  of  this  activity  is  shown  by  various 
forms  of  the  symbol.  Sometimes  the  arms  of  the  Greek 
cross  widen  out  as  they  recede  from  the  centre,  and 
then  we  get  the  form  called  the  Maltese  cross.  Another 
line  of  symbology  retains  the  straight  arms  of  the 
Greek  cross,  but  draws  a  flame  shooting  out  from  the 


138  THE  INNER  LIFE 

end  of  each  arm,  to  signify  the  burning  light  within. 
A  further  extension  of  this  idea  sets  the  cross  whirling 
round  its  centre,  like  a  revolving  wheel,  and  when  that 
is  done  the  flames  are  drawn  as  streaming  backwards 
as  the  cross  revolves,  and  in  that  way  we  get  one  of 
the  most  universal  of  all  symbols,  that  of  the  svastika, 
which  is  to  be  found  in  every  country  in  the  world,  and 
in  connection  with  every  religion. 

The  symbolic  meaning  of  the  ordinary  Latin  cross, 
as  it  is  used  in  the  Christian  Church,  has  no  connection 
whatever  with  this  line  of  thought.  Its  meaning  is 
entirely  different,  for  it  symbolizes  the  Second  Logos, 
and  His  descent  into  matter,  and  it  is  also  closely  con- 
nected with  the  initiation  rites  of  ancient  Egypt.  In 
the  case  of  The  Book  of  Dzyan  the  comprehension  of 
the  symbol  is  enormously  assisted  by  the  fact  that  the 
book  itself  is  highly  magnetized  in  a  peculiar  way,  so 
that  when  the  student  who  is  privileged  to  see  it  takes 
one  of  the  pages  in  his  hand  a  remarkable  effect  is 
produced  upon  him.  Before  his  mind's  eye  arises  the 
picture  of  that  which  the  page  is  intended  to  symbolize, 
and  simultaneously  he  hears  a  sort  of  recitation  of  the 
stanza  which  describes  it.  It  is  very  difficult  to  put  this 
clearly  into  words,  but  the  experience  is  a  wonderful 
one. 

I  have  myself  seen  and  handled  the  copy  which 
Madame  Blavatsky  describes — from  the  study  of  which 
she  wrote  The  Secret  Doctrine.  That  is  of  course  not 
the  original  book,  but  the  copy  of  it  which  is  kept  in 
the  occult  museum  which  is  under  the  care  of  the 
Master  K.  H.  The  original  document  is  at  Shamballa, 
in  the  care  of  the  Head  of  the  Hierarchy,  and  is  cer- 
tainly the  oldest  book  in  the  world.  Indeed  it  has  been 
said  that  part  of  it  (the  first  six  stanzas,  I  think)  is  even 
older  than  the  world,  for  it  is  said  to  have  been  brought 


SYMBOLOGY  139 

over  from  some  previous  chain.  That  most  ancient 
part  is  regarded  by  some  as  not  merely  an  account  of 
the  processes  of  the  coming  into  existence  of  a  system, 
but  rather  a  kind  of  manual  of  directions  for  such  an 
act  of  creation.  Even  the  copy  must  be  millions  of 
years  old. 

Another  well-known  symbol  is  that  of  the  "Great 
Bird,"  which  is  used  to  denote  the  Deity  in  the  act  of 
hovering  over  His  universe,  brooding  over  the  waters 
of  space,  or  darting  onward  along  the  line  of  His  evolu- 
tion. To  repose  between  the  wings  of  the  Great  Bird 
means  so  to  meditate  as  to  realize  union  with  the  Logos, 
and  it  is  said  that  the  man  who  reaches  that  level  may 
rest  there  for  untold  years. 

The  word  Om  is  another  presentation  of  the  same 
idea ;  it  is  the  sacred  word  of  the  fifth  or  Aryan  root- 
race.  The  Atlantean  sacred  word  was  Tau,  and  it  has 
been  said  that  the  sacred  words  given  to  the  root-races 
in  succession  are  all  of  them  consecutive  syllables  of 
one  great  word,  which  is  the  true  sacred  Name. 

Another  obvious  symbol,  the  heart,  was  prominent 
in  the  old  Atlantean  religion.  In  the  innermost  shrine 
of  the  great  temple  in  the  City  of  the  Golden  Gate  there 
lay  upon  the  altar  a  massive  golden  box  in  the  shape  of 
a  heart,  the  secret  opening  of  which  was  known  only 
to  the  high-priest.  This  was  called  "The  Heart  of  the 
World,"  and  signified  to  them  the  innermost  mysteries 
that  they  knew.  In  it  they  kept  their  most  sacred 
things,  and  much  of  their  symbolism  centred  around 
it.  They  knew  that  every  atom  beats  as  a  heart,  and 
they  considered  that  the  sun  had  a  similar  movement, 
which  they  connected  with  the  sun-spot  period.  Some- 
times one  comes  across  passages  in  their  books  which 
give  the  impression  that  they  knew  more  than  we  do 
in  matters  of  science,  though  they  regarded  it  all  rather 


140  THE  INNER  LIFE 

from  the  poetic  than  from  the  scientific  point  of  view. 
They  thought,  for  example,  that  the  earth  breathes  and 
moves,  and  it  is  certainly  true  that  quite  recently  scien- 
tific men  have  discovered  that  there  is  a  regular  daily 
displacement  of  the  earth's  surface  which  may  be 
thought  of  as  corresponding  in  a  certain  way  to 
breathing. 

Another  symbol  is  that  of  the  lotus,  and  it  is  used  to 
signify  the  solar  system  in  its  relation  to  its  LOGOS. 
There  is  a  real  reason  for  this  comparison  in  the  actual 
facts  of  nature.  The  seven  Planetary  Logoi,  although 
they  are  great  individual  entities,  are  at  the  same  time 
aspects  of  the  Solar  Logos,  force-centres  as  it  were  in 
His  body.  Now  each  of  these  great  living  centres  or 
subsidiary  Logoi  has  a  sort  of  orderly  periodic  change 
or  motion  of  his  own,  corresponding  perhaps  on  some 
infinitely  higher  level  to  the  regular  beating  of  the 
human  heart,  or  to  the  inspiration  and  expiration  of 
the  breath. 

Some  of  these  periodic  changes  are  more  rapid  than 
others,  so  that  a  very  complicated  series  of  effects  is 
produced,  and  it  has  been  observed  that  the  movements 
of  the  physical  planets  in  their  relation  to  one  another 
furnish  a  clue  to  the  operation  of  these  great  cosmic 
influences  at  any  given  moment.  Each  of  these  centres 
has  His  special  location  or  major  focus  within  the  body 
of  the  sun,  and  has  also  a  minor  focus  which  is  always 
exterior  to  the  sun.  The  position  of  this  minor  focus 
is  always  indicated  by  a  physical  planet. 

The  exact  relation  can  hardly  be  made  dear  to  our 
three-dimensional  phraseology;  but  we  may  perhaps 
put  it  that  each  centre  has  a  field  of  influence  prac- 
tically co-extensive  with  the  solar  system ;  that  if  a  sec- 
tion of  the  field  could  be  taken  it  would  be  found  to  be 
elliptical ;  and  that  one  of  the  foci  of  each  ellipse  would 


SYMBOLOGY  141 

always  be  in  the  sun,  and  the  other  would  be  the  special 
planet  ruled  by  the  subsidiary  Logos.  It  is  probable 
that,  in  the  gradual  condensation  of  the  original  glow- 
ing nebula  from  which  the  system  was  formed,  the 
location  of  the  planets  was  determined  by  the  forma- 
tion of  vortices  at  these  minor  foci,  they  being  auxiliary 
points  of  distribution — ganglia  as  it  were  in  the  solar 
system.  All  the  physical  planets  are  included  within 
the  portion  of  the  system  which  is  common  to  all  the 
ovoids ;  so  that  any  one  who  tries  mentally  to  construct 
the  figure  will  see  that  these  revolving  ovoids  must 
have  their  projecting  segments,  and  he  will  therefore 
be  prepared  to  understand  the  comparison  of  the  sys- 
tem as  a  whole  to  a  flower  with  many  petals. 

Another  reason  for  this  comparison  of  the  system  to 
a  lotus  is  even  more  beautiful,  but  requires  deeper 
thought.  As  we  see  them  the  planets  appear  as  sep- 
arate globes;  but  there  is  in  reality  a  connection  be- 
tween them  which  is  out  of  reach  of  our  brain-con- 
sciousness. Those  who  have  studied  the  subject  of  the 
fourth  dimension  are  familiar  with  the  idea  of  an 
extension  in  a  direction  invisible  to  us,  but  it  may  not 
have  occurred  to  them  that  it  is  applicable  to  the  solar 
system  as  a  whole. 

We  may  obtain  a  suggestion  of  the  facts  by  holding 
the  hand  palm  upwards  bent  so  as  to  form  a  kind  of 
cup,  but  with  the  fingers  separated,  and  then  laying  a 
sheet  of  paper  upon  the  tips  of  the  fingers.  A  two- 
dimensional  being  living  on  the  plane  of  that  sheet  of 
paper  could  not  possibly  be  conscious  of  the  hand  as  a 
whole,  but  could  perceive  only  the  tiny  circles  at  the 
points  of  contact  between  the  fingers  and  the  paper. 
To  him  these  circles  would  be  entirely  unconnected,  but 
we,  using  the  sight  of  a  higher  dimension,  can  see  that 
each  of  them  has  a  downward  expansion,  and  that  in 


142  THE  INNER  LIFE 

that  way  they  are  all  parts  of  a  hand.  In  exactly  the 
same  way  the  man  using  the  sight  of  the  fourth  dimen- 
sion may  observe  that  the  planets  which  are  isolated 
in  our  three  dimensions  are  all  the  time  joined  in  an- 
other way  which  we  cannot  yet  see ;  and  from  the  point 
of  view  of  that  higher  sight  these  globes  are  but  the 
points  of  petals  which  are  part  of  one  great  flower. 
And  the  glowing  heart  of  that  flower  throws  up  a  cen- 
tral pistil  which  appears  to  us  as  the  sun. 

It  is  not  wise  for  the  votary  of  modern  science  to  ridi- 
cule or  despise  either  the  learning  of  old  time  or  the 
strange  and  fanciful  symbols  in  which  it  was  expressed, 
for  many  of  these  ancient  symbols  are  pregnant  with 
meaning — often  with  meaning  showing  deeper  knowl- 
edge than  the  outer  world  now  possesses.  The  Theo- 
sophical  student  at  least  will  avoid  the  mistake  of 
despising  anything  merely  because  he  does  not  yet  com- 
prehend it — because  he  has  not  yet  learnt  the  language 
in  which  it  is  written. 


Fire 


On  higher  planes  everything  is  what  down  here  we 
should  call  luminous,  and  above  a  certain  level  every- 
thing may  be  said  to  be  permeated  by  fire,  yet  not  at  all 
such  fire  as  we  know  on  the  physical  plane.  What  we 
call  by  that  name  down  here  cannot  exist  without  some- 
thing which  either  burns  or  glows,  and  it  is  only  a  kind 
of  reflection  or  lower  expression  of  a  higher  abstract 
thing  which  we  cannot  sense.  Try  to  think  of  a  fire 
which  does  not  burn,  but  is  in  a  liquid  form,  something 
like  water.  This  was  known  to  the  followers  of  the  first 
great  Zoroaster,  for  they  had  this  fire  which  burned  no 


FIRE  143 

fuel  on  their  altars,  a  sacred  fire  by  means  of  which 
they  symbolized  divine  life. 

One  way  of  reaching  the  Logos  is  along  the  line  of 
fire,  and  the  ancient  Parsis  knew  this  well,  and  raised 
themselves  until  they  were  one  with  the  fire,  so  as  to 
reach  Him  by  way  of  it.  The  only  way  in  which  it  can 
be  done  is  through  the  assistance  of  certain  classes  of 
devas,  but  at  this  period  of  the  world's  history  we  are 
so  grossly  material  that  very  few  can  stand  the  ordeal. 
The  first  Zoroaster  had  around  him  many  who  were 
able  to  take  that  way ;  and,  though  under  present  condi- 
tions our  lower  vehicles  would  probably  be  destroyed  if 
we  should  make  such  an  attempt,  in  new  races  and  on 
other  planets  we  shall  be  able  to  take  that  way  again. 
All  this  sounds  strange  and  weird  and  incomprehen- 
sible, because  it  deals  with  conditions  which  are  utterly 
unknown  on  the  physical  plane,  but  the  student  of 
occultism  will  find  that  in  the  course  of  his  progress  he 
has  to  face  many  things  which  cannot  at  all  be  ex- 
pressed in  words  down  here. 


QHjtrfc  &*rttatt 


©t}*  ©tjenanplfual  Jkttitnb? 


THIRD  SECTION 

Common  Sense 

1BOVE  all  things  and  under  all  circumstances 
the  student  of  occultism  must  hold  fast  to 
common  sense.  He  will  meet  with  many  new 
ideas,  with  many  startling  facts,  and  if  he 
allows  the  strangeness  of  things  to  overbalance  him, 
harm  instead  of  good  will  result  from  the  increase  of 
his  knowledge.  Many  other  qualities  are  desirable  for 
progress,  but  a  well-balanced  mind  is  an  actual  neces- 
sity. The  study  of  occultism  may  indeed  be  summed 
up  in  this :  it  is  the  study  of  much  that  is  unrecognized 
by  the  ordinary  man — the  acquisition  therefore  of  a 
great  multitude  of  new  facts,  and  then  the  adaptation 
of  one's  life  to  the  new  facts  in  a  reasonable  and  com- 
mon-sense way.  All  occultism  of  which  I  know  any- 
thing is  simply  an  apotheosis  of  common  sense. 


Brotherhood 

The  brotherhood  of  man  is  a  fact  in  nature ;  those 
who  deny  it  are  simply  those  who  are  blind  to  it,  be- 
cause they  shut  their  eyes  to  actualities  which  they  do 
not  wish  to  acknowledge.  We  need  waste  little  time 
over  those  who  deny  it;  nature  itself  will  refute  their 
heresy.  More  subtly  dangerous  are  those  who  misun- 
derstand it,  and  their  name  is  legion. 

Remember  not  only  what  brotherhood  means,  but 

147 


148  THE  INNER  LIFE 

also  what  it  does  not  mean.  It  emphatically  does  not 
mean  equality,  for  twins  and  triplets  are  compara- 
tively rare;  under  all  but  the  most  abnormal  circum- 
stances, brotherhood  implies  a  difference  in  age,  and 
consequently  all  sorts  of  other  differences,  in  strength, 
in  cleverness,  in  capacity. 

Brotherhood  implies  community  of  interest,  but  not 
community  of  interests.  If  the  family  be  rich  all  its 
members  profit  thereby;  if  the  family  be  poor,  all  its 
members  suffer  accordingly.  So  there  is  a  community 
of  interest.  But  the  individual  interests  of  the  brothers 
not  only  may  be,  but  also  for  many  years  must  be,  abso- 
lutely different.  What  interests  has  the  boy  of  four- 
teen in  common  with  his  brother  of  six?  Each  lives  his 
own  life  among  friends  of  his  own  age,  and  has  far 
more  in  common  with  them  than  with  his  brother. 
What  cares  the  elder  brother  of  twenty-five,  fighting 
his  way  in  the  world,  for  all  the  prizes  and  anxieties 
of  school-life  which  fill  the  horizon  of  that  second 
brother  ? 

It  is  not  to  be  expected,  then,  that  because  they  are 
brothers  men  shall  feel  alike  or  be  interested  in  the 
same  things.  It  would  not  be  desirable,  even  if  it  were 
possible,  for  their  duties  differ  according  to  their  ages, 
and  the  one  thing  which  most  promotes  the  evolution 
of  the  human  family  as  a  whole  is  that  every  man 
should  strive  earnestly  to  do  his  duty  in  that  state  of 
life  to  which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  him,  as  the 
Church  catechism  puts  it.  This  does  not  in  the  least 
imply  that  every  man  must  always  remain  in  the  sta- 
tion in  which  his  karma  has  placed  him  at  birth ;  if  he 
can  honestly  and  harmlessly  make  such  further  karma 
as  will  raise  him  out  of  it  he  is  at  perfect  liberty  to  do 
so.  But  at  whatever  stage  he  may  be,  he  should  do  the 
duties  of  that  stage.     The  child  grows  steadily;  but 


BROTHERHOOD  149 

while  he  is  at  a  certain  age,  his  duties  are  those  appro- 
priate to  that  age,  and  not  those  of  some  older  brother. 
Each  age  has  its  duties — the  younger  to  learn  and  to 
serve,  and  the  older  to  direct  and  protect ;  but  all  alike 
to  be  loving  and  helpful,  all  alike  to  try  to  realize  the 
idea  of  the  great  family  of  humanity.  Each  will  best 
help  his  brothers,  not  by  interfering  with  them,  but  by 
trying  earnestly  to  do  his  own  duty  as  a  member  of  this 
family. 

The  brotherhood  of  our  Society  ought  to  be  a  very 
real  thing.  It  is  important  that  we  should  recognize 
and  realize  a  close  fellowship,  a  feeling  of  real  unity 
and  drawing  together.  This  will  be  achieved  if  mem- 
bers will  forget  their  own  personal  feelings  and  think 
chiefly  of  the  interests  of  others.  The  heart  of  the 
Society  is  making  for  itself  a  body  on  the  buddhic 
plane,  a  channel  through  which  the  Great  Ones  can 
work.  The  perfection  of  the  channel  as  such  depends 
upon  the  attitude  of  the  earnest  and  devoted  members. 
As  yet  it  is  very  imperfect,  because  of  the  tendency  of 
each  member  to  think  too  much  of  himself  as  a  unit, 
and  too  little  of  the  good  and  well-being  of  the  whole. 
The  stones  of  the  wall  must  be  built  each  in  its  own 
place ;  one  standing  out  of  place  here,  or  projecting 
there,  causes  roughness,  and  the  wall  as  a  whole  is  a 
less  perfect  wall.  We  form  but  a  little  part  of  a  vast 
scheme,  one  wheel  as  it  were  of  a  machine.  It  is  for  us 
to  make  ourselves  really  fit  for  our  little  part;  if  we 
do  that,  though  we  may  be  quite  unfit  to  take  a  leading 
position  in  the  drama  of  the  world,  yet  what  little  we 
do  is  well  done  and  lasting,  and  will  honourably  fill  its 
place  in  the  greater  whole. 

You  are  all  aware  that  in  seven  hundred  years'  time 
our  two  Masters  will  commence  the  founding  of  the 
sixth  root-race,  and  that  even  already  They  are  looking 


150  THE  INNER  LIFE 

about  for  those  who  will  be  suitable  assistants  for 
Them  in  that  work.  But  there  is  something  nearer 
than  that  to  be  done — and  it  is  a  work  which  will  afford 
excellent  practice  in  developing  the  qualities  necessary 
for  that  larger  work ;  and  this  is  the  development  of  the 
sixth  sub-race  of  the  Aryan  race,  which  is  now  just 
beginning  to  be  formed  in  North  America.  Already 
signs  are  to  be  seen  of  the  preparations  for  this  work ; 
different  races  are  being  welded  together  in  one;  and 
we  too  have  our  part  to  play  in  this.  We  all  recognize 
how  important  it  is  that  a  child's  early  years  should 
be  surrounded  by  good  influences,  and  it  is  just  the 
same  with  the  childhood  of  a  race.  If  we  can  succeed 
in  starting  this  young  race  along  right  lines  much  will 
be  gained ;  and  we,  even  at  this  distance  from  America, 
can  be  of  great  help  at  this  critical  period  of  history,  if 
we  will. 

Part  of  the  scheme  very  shortly  to  be  realized  is  the 
drawing  together  of  the  various  branches  of  our  fifth 
sub-race,  the  Teutonic.  Many  of  us  belong  to  that — 
the  English  colonies,  the  Americans,  the  Scandina- 
vians, the  Dutch  and  the  Germans;  and  many  also  in 
France  and  Italy,  as  for  example  the  Normans,  who 
are  the  descendants  of  the  Norsemen,  and  also  those  in 
southern  countries  who  are  descendants  of  the  Goths 
and  Visigoths.  What  is  desired  in  order  to  promote 
the  work  of  the  great  plan  is  that  all  these  races  should 
be  drawn  into  much  closer  sympathy.  This  has  already 
been  achieved  to  a  great  extent  in  the  case  of  England 
and  America;  it  is  very  much  to  be  regretted  that  it 
cannot  be  done  in  the  case  of  Germany  also,  but  for  the 
present  that  great  country  seems  disposed  to  hold  aloof 
from  the  desired  coalition,  and  to  stand  out  for  what  it 
considers  its  own  private  interests.  It  is  much  to  be 
hoped  that  this  difficulty  may  be  overcome. 


BROTHERHOOD  151 

The  great  purpose  of  this  drawing  together  is  to  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  coming  of  the  new  Messiah,  or, 
as  we  should  say  in  Theosophical  circles,  the  next 
advent  of  the  Lord  Maitreya,  as  a  great  spiritual 
teacher,  bringing  a  new  religion.  The  time  is  rapidly 
approaching  when  this  shall  be  launched — a  teaching 
which  shall  unify  the  other  religions,  and  compared 
with  them  shall  stand  upon  a  broader  basis  and  keep 
its  purity  longer.  But  before  this  can  come  about  we 
must  have  got  rid  of  the  incubus  of  war,  which  at 
present  is  always  hanging  over  our  heads  like  a  great 
spectre,  paralyzing  the  best  intellects  of  all  countries 
as  regards  social  experiments,  making  it  impossible  for 
our  statesmen  to  try  new  plans  and  methods  on  a  large 
scale.  Therefore  one  essential  towards  carrying  out 
the  scheme  is  a  period  of  universal  peace.  Many  efforts 
have  already  been  made  in  various  ways  to  bring 
about  this  result — for  example  the  Peace  Conference ; 
but  it  seems  that  some  other  way  will  have  to  be 
tried. 

If  we  of  the  fifth  sub-race  can  but  put  aside  our 
prejudices  and  stand  side  by  side,  a  great  work  lies 
before  us  in  the  future.  Ours  is  the  latest  sub-race, 
and  therefore  contains,  generally  speaking,  the  high- 
est egos  in  evolution.  Yet  the  majority  of  the  people 
in  it  are  by  no  means  ready  to  respond  to  a  purely 
unselfish  motive  as  a  means  of  bringing  about  the  uni- 
versal peace  required. 

How  then  can  this  best  be  attained  ?  By  making  it  to 
the  interest  of  all  these  nations  to  insist  upon  universal 
peace.  Remember  that  trade  suffers  during  war.  We 
of  these  various  branches  of  the  Teutonic  race  are  the 
greatest  trading  nations  of  the  world,  and  I  hope  that 
we  may  shortly  realize  that  it  is  to  our  interest  to  bind 
ourselves  together,  and  to  stand  for  peace.    Truly  this 


152  THE  INNER  LIFE 

is  not  a  very  high  motive,  for  it  is  merely  self-interest ; 
but  still  when  the  rulers  and  great  statesmen  are  moved 
to  desire  unity  from  the  abstract  love  for  humanity, 
this  lower  motive  may  help  to  bring  their  less  developed 
fellow-countrymen  into  line  with  them,  and  cause  them 
warmly  to  support  any  movement  which  they  may  set 
on  foot  for  that  object. 

All  sorts  of  events  are  being  utilized  to  help  this 
binding  together  of  our  race.  For  example,  the  death 
of  Her  Majesty  the  late  Queen  Victoria  was  very  decid- 
edly utilized  for  that  purpose.  Her  life  did  very  much 
in  drawing  the  Colonies  together  into  closer  bonds  with 
the  Mother-country.  Those  who  saw  the  Jubilee  pro- 
cession from  the  psychic  standpoint  were  greatly  im- 
pressed with  the  mighty  current  of  high  emotion 
thereby  evoked.  In  her  life  she  did  much,  but  at  her 
death  still  more  was  accomplished.  By  her  death  she 
drew  close  not  only  our  Colonies,  but  also  the  United 
States.  I  was  in  America  at  the  time  of  her  death,  and 
really  it  might  have  been  their  own  ruler  for  whom  the 
Americans  were  mourning,  so  spontaneous  and  so  sin- 
cere were  their  expressions  of  the  sense  of  loss.  So  in 
her  death  the  great  Queen  did  grand  service,  as  well 
as  in  her  life. 

Each  race  has  its  own  peculiarities,  just  as  each  indi- 
vidual has.  If  we  wish  to  co-operate  in  the  great  work 
we  must  learn  to  allow  for  these,  to  be  tolerant  of  them, 
and  to  regard  them  with  a  kindly  interest,  instead  of 
sneering  at  them  or  letting  them  get  on  our  nerves. 
What  then  can  we  do  practically  to  help  these  great 
national  affairs  ?  This  at  least :  that  when  in  our  pres- 
ence unkind  or  sneering  remarks  are  made  about  other 
nations,  we  can  make  a  point  of  always  putting  for- 
ward considerations  on  the  other  side,  and  saying  some- 
thing kindly.    We  may  not  always  be  able  to  contradict 


BROTHERHOOD  153 

the  evil  thing  said,  but  at  least  we  may  supplement 
it  with  something  that  is  good. 

There  are  perhaps  but  few  of  us,  but  at  least  in  the 
course  of  a  year  each  of  us  probably  meets  at  least  a 
thousand  others,  and  each  of  us  may  to  that  extent  be 
a  centre  for  helping  our  own  nation  to  see  good  in 
others,  and  thus,  though  it  may  be  only  in  a  small  way, 
we  may  be  able  to  smooth  the  path  and  make  the  way 
for  union  easier.  Many  people  are  constantly  in  the 
habit  of  speaking  with  narrow  prejudice  against  the 
peculiarities  of  other  nations ;  let  us  at  least  take  care 
not  to  do  this,  but  always  bear  in  mind  the  importance 
of  promoting  friendly  feeling.  Do  not  let  us  despair 
when  we  think  how  little  each  one  of  us  can  do  in  the 
matter ;  let  us  rather  remember  that  every  little  effort 
will  be  used  by  Those  who  are  working  from  behind. 
No  doubt  the  scheme  will  be  carried  out  whether  or  not 
we  take  the  privilege  which  is  offered  to  us  of  helping 
in  it;  but  that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  do  our 
best. 

Nor  is  it  only  good  people  who  are  used  in  the  promo- 
tion of  the  scheme.  All  sorts  of  forces  are  being  used 
by  the  Great  Brotherhood  that  stands  behind  to  for- 
ward the  necessary  work.  Yes,  even  the  very  selfish- 
ness and  the  failings  of  men.  ''Blindly  the  wicked  work 
the  righteous  will  of  heaven,"  as  Southey  writes  in 
Thalaba.  And  "All  things  work  together  for  good  to 
them  that  love  God."  This  was  spoken  as  regards  per- 
sonal karma,  but  the  same  thing  holds  good  in  regard 
to  greater  and  broader  schemes.  For  example,  the  big- 
otry of  the  Christian  Church,  evil  though  it  is,  has  not 
been  altogether  valueless,  for  it  has  helped  to  develope 
strength  of  faith,  since  the  ignorant  cannot  believe 
strongly  without  being  bigoted.  Self-seeking  in  com- 
mercial pursuits  is  evil  also,  yet  it  has  in  it  a  certain 


154  THE  INNER  LIFE 

power  which  can  be  turned  to  account  by  those  who 
stand  behind,  for  it  developes  strength  of  will  and  con- 
centration, qualities  which  in  a  future  life  may  be  put 
to  most  valuable  uses. 

We  each  have  an  opportunity  to  help  in  this  scheme, 
to  co-operate  on  the  side  of  good.  If  we  do  not  take 
the  opportunity  offered  to  us,  another  will,  and  if  not 
that  other,  then  another,  but  in  any  case  the  work  will 
be  done. 

We  know  that  already  some  to  whom  the  opportunity 
has  been  offered  have  cast  it  aside ;  but  that  is  only  all 
the  more  reason  why  we  should  work  with  greater 
vigour,  so  as  to  atone  for  their  defection — to  do  their 
share  as  well  as  our  own.  Never  for  a  moment  must 
we  fear  that  because  of  such  defection  the  work  will  be 
allowed  to  suffer.  We  cannot  but  regret  that  our  poor 
friends  should  lose  their  opportunities — that  from  ig- 
norance and  lack  of  clear-sightedness  they  are  working 
so  sadly  against  their  own  interests.  Yet  remember 
that  their  folly  is  but  temporary;  they  will  awaken  to 
the  truth  some  day — if  not  in  this  life,  then  in  some 
other.  Meantime  inside  all  is  well,  and  the  Great  Work 
is  going  forward. 

The  evolution  of  the  world  is,  after  all,  like  any  other 
large  undertaking.  Think  of  the  making  of  a  railway, 
for  instance.  It  does  not  matter  to  the  railway  com- 
pany or  to  the  future  passengers  which  workman  lays 
a  certain  rail  or  drives  a  certain  bolt,  so  long  as  it  is 
well  and  truly  done;  and  the  overseer  will  attend  to 
that.  It  matters  very  much  to  the  workman,  for  he 
who  works  receives  the  pay,  while  the  other  gets  noth- 
ing. The  overseer  regrets  it  when  a  workman  goes  off 
in  a  fit  of  temper  or  of  drunkenness  and  refuses  to  work 
for  a  day;  but  he  thinks,  "Never  mind,  he  will  come 
back  tomorrow,"  and  meantime  he  employs  some  one 


BROTHERHOOD  155 

else.  Many  have  left  the  work  in  just  that  way  in  an 
outburst  of  personality,  but  they  will  return.  The 
question  is  not  as  to  whether  the  work  shall  be  done — 
the  Masters  will  see  to  that  in  any  case ;  it  is  only  as  to 
who  will  embrace  the  opportunity  of  doing  it. 

Many  people  who  contend  bitterly  against  the  right 
are  merely  showing  that  they  are  not  yet  fit  to  pass  this 
test;  they  have  not  yet  reached  the  stage  where  they 
can  forget  themselves  utterly  in  the  work;  their  per- 
sonalities are  still  rampant,  and  so  they  are  capable  of 
being  shocked  and  thrown  off  their  balance,  if  some 
new  fact  comes  before  them.  It  is  sad,  of  course,  but  it 
is  only  temporary;  they  have  lost  a  good  opportunity 
for  this  life,  because  they  are  not  yet  strong  enough 
for  it;  but  there  are  many  lives  yet  to  come.  Mean- 
time others  will  take  their  places.  Never  forget  that 
the  one  thing  of  importance  is  that  the  Masters'  work 
should  be  done ;  let  us  at  least  be  among  those  who  are 
doing  it  now,  even  though  there  are  many  who  cannot 
yet  see  clearly  enough  to  help  us.  They  repudiate  the 
Masters  for  this  life,  like  a  naughty  little  boy  who  gets 
angry  with  his  parents,  and  in  a  fit  of  passion  runs 
away  and  hides  himself;  but  presently  hunger  brings 
the  naughty  little  boy  home  again,  and  in  the  same  way 
hunger  for  the  truth  which  they  have  once  tasted  will 
bring  most  of  them  back  to  the  feet  of  the  Masters  in 
their  next  lives.  Meantime  let  us  stand  firm,  and  fill 
our  hearts  with  peace  even  in  the  midst  of  strife. 

If  we  would  rise  to  our  opportunity  we  must  rub 
down  our  corners  and  get  rid  of  our  awkward  person- 
alities, and  forget  them  in  encouraging  good  feeling  in 
every  possible  way.  If  we  hear  something  said  against 
somebody  else  let  us  at  once  try  to  put  the  other  side, 
and  this  both  with  regard  to  nations  and  individuals. 
Counterbalance  the  evil  by  speaking  the  good — not  to 


156  THE  INNER  LIFE 

give  a  false  impression,  but  to  give  the  best  possible 
aspect  or  interpretation  of  the  facts.  Our  work  is  to 
make  the  machine  run  smoothly,  and  neutralize  the 
friction.  Our  aim  is  to  be  a  united  whole  as  a  Society, 
and  to  help  towards  harmony  in  the  outside  world.  The 
scheme  is  great,  the  opportunity  glorious;  shall  we 
take  it? 

Yet  beware  lest  you  should  make  the  idea  of  prepar- 
ing yourself  for  grand  work  in  the  future  an  excuse  for 
neglecting  the  minor  opportunities  of  every-day  life. 
A  good  example  of  what  I  mean  is  offered  by  a  letter 
which  I  recently  received,  in  which  the  writer  says  that 
he  finds  himself  in  the  position  of  having  to  teach  a 
Theosophical  Branch,  and  that  he  feels  it  a  great  re- 
sponsibility, of  which  he  cannot  think  himself  worthy 
because  his  knowledge  is  at  present  so  imperfect.  Now 
in  reply  to  this  I  shall  say : 

Do  not  be  in  the  least  troubled  about  your  position 
towards  your  Branch.  Assuredly  it  is  a  responsibility 
to  teach,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  is  a  very  great  priv- 
ilege. Think  of  it  rather  in  this  way,  that  here  are  a 
number  of  hungry  souls,  and  Those  who  stand  behind 
have  been  so  kind  to  you  as  to  give  you  the  opportunity 
of  being  the  channel  through  which  these  can  be  fed. 
You  have  the  broad  principles  of  the  teaching  clearly 
in  mind,  and  your  own  common  sense  will  keep  you 
from  going  far  wrong  in  details.  I  admire  your  ex- 
treme consciousness,  but  if  you  keep  these  main  prin- 
ciples steadily  before  your  pupils,  you  are  very  little 
likely  to  go  wrong  in  your  teaching. 

We  all  have  the  responsibility  of  which  you  speak, 
and  those  of  us  who  have  to  write  the  books  and  give 
the  lectures  feel  it  far  more  acutely  than  you  can  imag- 
ine. Indeed  we  have  sometimes  been  told  by  friends 
that  we  ought  to  have  attained  adeptship  before  we 


BROTHERHOOD  157 

wrote  any  books,  so  that  it  might  be  quite  certain  that 
there  should  be  no  mistakes  in  them.  I  can  only  say 
that  we  decided  to  share  our  imperfect  knowledge  with 
our  brothers,  even  while  we  still  have  very  much  to  ac- 
quire; and  I  think  that  the  result  has  justified  our  de- 
cision. If  we  had  waited  until  we  attained  adeptship, 
it  is  true  that  our  books  would  have  been  perfect — 
and  they  are  very  far  from  being  perfect  now — but 
then  you  see  you  would  all  have  had  to  wait  a  thousand 
years  or  so  for  them,  which  would  have  made  a  con- 
siderable difference  to  the  work  of  the  Society  in  the 
present  century.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  problem  that 
lies  before  you  is  an  exactly  similar  one.  You  also 
might  refrain  from  teaching  until  you  knew  every- 
thing; but  what  would  become  of  your  Branch  in  the 
meantime  ? 


Helping  the  World 

One  of  the  first  qualifications  which  are  required  for 
the  treading  of  the  Path  is  single-mindedness  or  one- 
pointedness.  Even  worldly  men  succeed  because  they 
are  one-pointed,  and  we  can  learn  from  them  the  value 
of  determination  on  our  own  line.  Our  goal  is  not  so 
tangible  as  theirs,  so  we  have  more  difficulty  in  keep- 
ing the  one-pointed  attitude  of  mind ;  but  in  India  the 
importance  of  the  unseen  is  more  easily  realized  than 
in  the  West.  It  is  good  to  seek  the  company  of  those 
who  are  more  advanced,  to  whom  the  realities  of  the 
Path  are  constantly  present ;  also  to  read  and  hear  and 
think  about  our  purpose  frequently,  and  unwaveringly 
to  practise  the  virtues  by  which  alone  the  perfect 
knowledge  can  come  to  us. 

This  is  an  age  of  hurry  and  scurry ;  the  tendency  is 


158  THE  INNER  LIFE 

for  people  to  do  a  little  of  many  things,  but  nothing 
thoroughly — to  flutter  from  one  thing  to  another.  No 
man  now  devotes  his  life  to  a  masterpiece,  as  was  often 
done  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  Europe,  in  old  days  in 
India. 

Occultism  changes  a  man's  life  in  many  ways,  but  in 
none  more  than  in  this;  it  makes  him  absolutely  one- 
pointed.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  it  causes  him 
to  neglect  any  duty  that  he  used  to  do ;  on  the  contrary, 
the  never-ceasing  watch  to  fulfil  every  duty  is  its  first 
prescription.  But  it  gives  him  a  keynote  of  life  which 
is  always  sounding  in  his  ears,  which  he  never  forgets 
for  an  instant — the  key-note  of  helpfulness.  Why? 
Because  he  learns  what  is  the  plan  of  the  Logos,  and 
tries  to  co-operate  in  it. 

This  involves  many  lines  of  action.  To  be  able  to 
help  effectively  he  must  make  himself  fit  to  help ;  hence 
he  must  undertake  the  most  careful  self-training,  the 
elimination  of  evil  qualities  from  himself,  the  develop- 
ment of  good  ones.  Also  he  must  maintain  a  constant 
watchfulness  for  opportunities  to  help. 

One  special  method  of  helping  the  world  lies  ready 
to  the  hand  of  members  of  our  Society — that  of  spread- 
ing Theosophic  truth.  We  have  no  right  and  no  desire 
to  force  our  ideas  on  any  one,  but  it  is  our  duty  and 
our  privilege  to  give  people  the  opportunity  of  know- 
ing the  real  explanation  of  the  problems  of  life.  If 
when  the  water  of  life  is  offered,  a  man  will  not  drink, 
that  is  his  own  affair;  but  at  least  we  should  see  that 
none  perishes  through  ignorance  of  the  existence  of 
that  water. 

We  have  then  this  duty  of  spreading  the  truth,  and 
nothing  should  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  it.  This 
is  the  work  that  as  a  Society  we  have  to  do,  and  we 
must  remember  that  the  duty  is  binding  upon  each  of 


HELPING    THE    WORLD  159 

us.  Our  minds  must  be  filled  with  it,  we  must  be  con- 
stantly thinking  and  planning  for  it,  seizing  every  op- 
portunity that  offers.  It  is  not  for  us  to  excuse  our- 
selves because  some  other  member  seems  to  be  doing 
nothing;  that  is  his  business,  and  we  are  in  no  wav 
concerned  in  it;  but  if  we  ourselves  neglect  to  do  our 
very  best,  we  are  failing  in  our  duty.  It  was  not  to  illu- 
mine our  own  path  that  this  glorious  light  came  to 
us,  but  that  we  also  in  our  turn  might  be  light-bearers 
to  our  suffering  brothers. 


Criticism 

If  we  wish  to  make  any  progress  in  occultism,  we 
must  learn  to  mind  our  own  business  and  let  other 
people  alone.  They  have  their  reasons  and  their  lines 
of  thought  which  we  do  not  understand.  To  their  own 
Master  they  stand  or  fall.  Once  more,  we  have  our 
work  to  do,  and  we  decline  to  be  diverted  from  it. 
We  must  learn  charity  and  tolerance,  and  repress  the 
mad  desire  to  be  always  finding  fault  with  someone 
else. 

It  is  a  mad  desire,  and  it  dominates  modern  life — 
this  spirit  of  criticism.  Every  one  wants  to  interfere 
with  somebody  else's  duty,  instead  of  attending  to  his 
own ;  every  one  thinks  he  can  do  the  other  man's  work 
better  than  it  is  being  done.  We  see  it  in  politics,  in 
religion,  in  social  life.  For  example  the  obvious  duty 
of  a  Government  is  to  govern,  and  the  duty  of  its  people 
is  to  be  good  citizens  and  to  make  that  work  of  gov- 
ernment easy  and  effective.  But  in  these  days  people 
are  so  eager  to  teach  their  Governments  how  to  gov- 
ern that  they  forget  all  about  their  own  primary  duty 


160  THE  INNER  LIFE 

of  being  good  citizens.  Men  will  not  realize  that  if 
they  will  but  do  their  duties,  karma  will  look  after  the 
"rights"  about  which  they  are  so  clamorous. 

How  comes  this  spirit  of  criticism  to  be  so  general 
and  so  savage  at  this  stage  of  the  world's  history? 
Like  most  other  evils,  it  is  the  excess  of  a  good  and 
necessary  quality.  In  the  course  of  evolution  we  have 
arrived  at  the  fifth  sub-race  of  the  fifth  root-race.  I 
mean  that  that  race  is  the  latest  yet  developed,  that 
its  spirit  is  dominant  in  the  world  just  now,  and  that 
even  those  who  do  not  belong  to  it  are  necessarily  much 
influenced  by  that  spirit. 

Now  each  race  has  its  own  special  lessons  to  learn, 
its  own  special  quality  to  unfold.  The  quality  of  the 
fifth-race  is  what  is  sometimes  called  manas — the  type 
of  intellect  that  discriminates,  that  notes  the  differ- 
ences between  things.  When  it  is  perfectly  developed, 
men  will  note  these  differences  calmly,  solely  for  the 
purpose  of  understanding  them  and  judging  which  is 
best.  But  now,  in  this  stage  of  half-development  most 
people  look  for  differences  from  their  own  point  of 
view  not  in  order  to  understand  them  but  in  order  to 
oppose  them — often  violently  to  persecute  them.  It 
is  simply  the  point  of  view  of  the  ignorant  and  un- 
evolved  man,  who  is  full  of  intolerance  and  self-con- 
ceit, absolutely  sure  that  he  is  right  (perhaps  he  may 
be  up  to  a  certain  point)  and  that  everybody  else  there- 
fore must  be  entirely  wrong — which  does  not  follow. 
Remember  that  Oliver  Cromwell  said  to  his  council : 
"Brethren,  I  beseech  you  in  the  sacred  name  of  the 
Christ  to  think  it  possible  that  you  may  sometimes 
mistake !" 

We  too  must  develop  the  critical  faculty;  but  we 
should  criticise  ourselves,  not  others. 

There  are  always  two  sides  to  every  question;  gen- 


CRITICISM  161 

erally  more  than  two.  Kritein  means  to  judge;  there- 
fore, criticism  is  useless  and  can  only  do  harm  unless 
it  is  absolutely  calm  and  judicial.  It  is  not  a  mad 
attack  upon  the  opponent,  but  a  quiet  unprejudiced 
weighing  of  reasons  for  and  against  a  certain  opinion 
or  a  certain  course  of  action.  We  may  decide  in  one 
way,  but  we  must  recognize  that  another  man  of  equal 
intellect  may  emphasize  another  aspect  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  therefore,  decide  quite  otherwise.  And  yet 
in  so  deciding  he  may  be  just  as  good,  just  as  wise, 
just  as  honest  as  we  ourselves. 

Yet  how  few  recognize  that;  how  few  rabid  prot- 
estants  really  believe  Catholics  to  be  good  men;  how 
few  convinced  redhot  radicals  really  believe  that  an  old 
Tory  squire  may  be  just  as  good  and  earnest  a  man  as 
themselves,  trying  honestly  to  do  what  he  thinks  his 
duty! 

If  a  man  comes  to  a  decision  different  from  our  own 
we  need  not  pretend  to  agree  with  him,  but  we  must 
give  him  credit  for  good  intentions.  One  of  the  worst 
features  of  modern  life  is  its  eager  readiness  to  believe 
evil — its  habit  of  deliberately  seeking  out  the  worst 
conceivable  construction  that  can  be  put  upon  every- 
thing. And  this  attitude  is  surely  at  its  very  worst 
when  adopted  towards  those  who  have  helped  us,  to 
whom  we  owe  thanks  for  knowledge  or  inspiration 
received.  Remember  the  words  of  the  Master:  "In- 
gratitude is  not  one  of  our  vices."  It  is  always  a  mis- 
take to  rush  madly  into  criticism  of  those  who  know 
more  than  we;  it  is  more  seemly  to  wait  and  think 
matters  over,  to  wait  and  see  what  the  future  brings 
forth.  Apply  the  test  of  time  and  the  result;  "By 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  Let  us  make  a  rule 
to  think  the  best  of  every  man ;  let  us  do  our  work  and 
leave  others  free  to  do  theirs. 


162  THE  INNER  LIFE 


Prejudice 


Beware  of  the  beginnings  of  suspicion :  it  will  distort 
everything.  I  have  seen  it  come  between  friends  and 
noticed  how  a  little  suspicion  soon  grows  into  a  giant 
misunderstanding.  Every  harmless  word  is  distorted, 
and  mistaken  to  be  the  expression  of  some  unkind  or 
improper  motive,  while  all  the  time  the  speaker  is 
utterly  unconscious  of  the  suspicion.  It  is  the  same 
when  opinions  differ  about  books  or  religion;  a  slight 
difference  of  opinion  is  fostered  by  dwelling  upon  all 
that  tells  on  one's  own  side  and  against  the  other  side, 
until  the  result  is  an  absurdly  distorted  view.  One 
finds  it  again  with  colour  prejudice,  although  those 
now  wearing  white  bodies  have  worn  brown  ones  and 
vice  versa,  and  the  habits  of  one  have  been  or  will  be 
the  habits  of  the  other.  Brotherhood  means  the  get- 
ting rid  of  prejudices;  knowledge  of  the  fact  of  rein- 
carnation ought  to  help  us  to  overcome  our  limitations 
and  uncharitableness. 

We  who  are  students  of  the  higher  life  must  rise 
above  these  prejudices.  It  is  a  difficult  task,  because 
they  are  ingrained — prejudices  of  race,  of  caste,  of 
religion ;  but  they  must  all  be  rooted  out,  because  they 
prevent  clear  sight  and  true  judgment.  They  are  like 
coloured  glass — still  more  like  cheap,  imperfect  glass ; 
everything  seen  through  them  is  distorted,  often  so 
much  so  as  to  look  entirely  different  from  what  it  really 
is.  Before  we  can  judge  and  discriminate  we  must 
see  clearly. 

It  is  always  very  easy  to  attribute  some  evil  motive 
to  others  whom  we  have  allowed  ourselves  to  dislike, 
and  to  discover  some  evil  explanation  for  their  acts. 
This  tendency  forms  a  very  serious  impediment  in  the 
path  of  progress.    We  must  tear  away  our  own  per- 


PREJUDICE  163 

sonalities,  for  only  then  shall  we  be  at  all  able  to  see 
the  other  person  as  he  is.  A  prejudice  is  a  kind  of 
wart  upon  the  mental  body,  and  of  course  when  a  man 
tries  to  look  out  through  that  particular  part  of  the 
body  he  cannot  see  clearly.  It  is  in  reality  a  congested 
spot  in  the  mental  body,  a  point  at  which  the  matter 
is  no  longer  living  and  flowing,  but  is  stagnant  and  rot- 
ten. The  way  to  cure  it  is  to  acquire  more  knowledge, 
to  get  the  matter  of  the  mental  body  into  motion,  and 
then  one  by  one  the  prejudices  will  be  washed  away 
and  dissolved. 

This  evil  effect  of  prejudice  was  what  Aryasangha 
meant  when  he  said,  in  The  Voice  of  the  Silence,  that  the 
mind  was  the  great  slayer  of  the  real.  By  that  he 
was  drawing  attention  to  the  fact  that  we  do  not  see 
any  object  as  it  is.  We  see  only  the  images  that  we 
are  able  to  make  of  it,  and  everything  is  necessarily 
coloured  for  us  by  these  thought-forms  of  our  own 
creation.  Notice  how  two  persons  with  preconceived 
ideas,  seeing  the  same  set  of  circumstances,  and  agree- 
ing as  to  the  actual  happenings,  will  yet  make  two 
totally  different  stories  from  them.  Exactly  this  sort 
of  thing  is  going  on  all  the  time  with  every  ordinary 
man,  and  we  do  not  realize  how  absurdly  we  distort 
things. 

The  duty  of  the  Theosophical  student  is  to  learn  to 
see  things  as  they  are,  and  this  means  control,  vigi- 
lance and  a  very  great  deal  of  hard  work.  In  the  West, 
for  example,  people  are  very  much  prejudiced  along 
religious  lines,  for  we  are  born  into  a  certain  religion 
and  sedulously  taught  that  all  others  are  superstitions. 
Our  ideas  therefore  are  biased  from  the  first,  and  even 
when  we  do  learn  to  know  a  little  about  other  relig- 
ions and  respect  them  it  would  be  difficult  for  us  to 
imagine  ourselves  born  into  them.     Those  who  are 


164  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Hindus  can  scarcely  think  of  themselves  as  being  born 
as  Christians  or  Muhammadans,  and  just  in  the  same 
way  the  Christian  or  Muhammadan  has  an  equal  diffi- 
culty in  thinking  of  himself  as  a  Hindu  or  a  Buddhist, 
although  it  is  practically  certain  that  in  some  past  life 
he  has  been  in  one  or  other  of  these  religions. 

Many  so-called  protestant  Christians  will  not  even 
now  trust  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  the  more  ignorant 
people  are,  the  greater  is  their  distrust  of  that  to  which 
they  are  unaccustomed.  The  peasantry,  for  example, 
have  an  instinctive  distrust  of  all  foreigners,  and 
there  are  many  country  places  in  England  where,  let 
us  say,  a  Frenchman,  unless  in  poverty  and  needing 
help,  would  certainly  be  regarded  with  suspicion.  If 
he  is  hungry  he  will  be  fed,  and  treated  with  com- 
passion; but  let  him  come  as  a  fellow-workman  and 
all  that  he  does  will  be  criticised,  laughed  at,  and  sus- 
pected. Now  of  course  all  this  comes  from  ignorance, 
and  occurs  because  the  peasantry  are  unaccustomed  to 
meeting  with  foreigners. 

The  removal  of  such  prejudice  is  one  of  the  great 
advantages  gained  by  an  intelligent  man  when  he  trav- 
els. In  the  Theosophical  Society  men  of  different  na- 
tions are  being  drawn  much  more  closely  together; 
Indians  are  learning  to  trust  white  people,  and  white 
people  in  turn  are  learning  that  Indians  are  much  the 
same  as  themselves.  I  was  working  in  Amsterdam 
during  the  Boer  war,  and  though  in  Holland  generally 
there  was  a  strong  feeling  at  the  time  against  Eng- 
land, there  was  never  the  slightest  trace  of  it  among 
the  Dutch  Theosophical  members.  It  is  most  inter- 
esting to  attend  one  of  the  European  Theosophical 
Conferences,  and  to  see  the  really  hearty  good  feeling 
which  exists  between  men  of  different  nations — how 
unfeignedly  glad  they  are  to  see  one  another,  and  how 


PREJUDICE  165 

they  rejoice  in  one  another's  company.  One  sees  at 
once  that  if  such  fellow-feeling  as  exists  between  the 
members  of  the  Theosophical  Society  could  only  spread 
to  a  majority  of  their  fellow-countrymen  in  the  vari- 
ous nations,  war  would  at  once  become  a  ridiculous 
impossibility. 

As  things  are  now  we  form  opinions  on  very  slight 
grounds;  you  meet  a  person  for  the  first  time,  and 
something  that  he  says,  or  some  trivial  gesture,  arouses 
in  you  a  little  dislike  of  him,  so  that  there  is  a  slight 
wall  between  you  and  him.  This  may  seem  an  unim- 
portant matter,  yet  if  you  are  not  careful  that  slight 
bias  against  the  person  will  grow  into  a  barrier  which 
will  for  ever  prevent  you  from  understanding  him. 
To  a  certain  extent  you  see  him  through  this  thought- 
form  that  you  have  made,  and  you  cannot  see  him  cor- 
rectly, for  it  is  like  looking  through  a  twisted  and  col- 
oured glass  which  distorts  everything. 

Sometimes,  but  not  so  often,  a  prejudice  is  in  favour 
of  the  person,  as  in  the  case  of  a  mother  who  can  see 
no  harm  in  what  her  child  does,  even  though  he  may 
seriously  harm  others.  Now  whether  they  be  against 
a  person  or  in  favour  of  him,  both  of  these  are  equally 
prejudices,  mental  delusions  which  slay  the  real.  The 
best  way  to  see  truly  is  to  begin  determinedly  to  look 
always  for  the  good  in  every  one,  as  our  prejudices 
are  generally  on  the  other  side,  and  we  are  sadly  prone 
to  see  the  evil  where  none  exists.  We  differ  from  other 
people  in  colour,  in  dress,  in  manners  and  customs,  and 
in  outer  forms  of  religion,  but  all  these  are  merely 
externals,  and  all  that  goes  to  make  up  the  real  man 
behind  and  beneath  all  this  is  much  the  same  in  us  all. 
It  is  not  after  all  so  difficult  to  learn  to  look  behind 
the  outer  shells  in  which  people  conceal  themselves. 
Thereby  they  usually  make  the  worst  of  themselves, 


166  THE  INNER  LIFE 

for  the  main  faults  nearly  always  lie  on  the  surface, 
and  the  real  gold  is  often  successfully  concealed.  One 
who  aspires  to  make  progress  must  overcome  this  blind- 
ness to  the  worth  of  others,  this  tendency  to  judge  by 
surface  characteristics. 

Remember  that  no  one  who  desires  to  stand  on  the 
side  of  good  as  against  evil  can  ever  be  refused  the 
opportunity,  no  matter  how  ignorant  or  bigoted  he  may 
be.  The  Masters  always  take  the  good  and  use  it  wher- 
ever it  appears,  even  if  there  is  in  the  same  man  much 
that  is  bad  also ;  and  Their  use  of  this  force  for  good 
greatly  helps  the  man  who  has  generated  it.  For  exam- 
ple, They  will  use  the  devotional  force  which  is  to  be 
found  even  in  a  murderous  fanatic,  and  thus  They  will 
allow  him  to  do  some  good  work  and  consequently  to 
be  helped. 

We  also  should  imitate  the  Great  ones;  we  should 
always  try  to  take  the  good  in  everything  and  every- 
body. Do  not  look  for  and  accentuate  the  evil  in  any 
one,  but  select  and  emphasize  the  good.  Go  on  doing 
your  own  work  to  the  best  of  your  ability,  and  do  not 
trouble  yourself  about  the  work  of  another,  or  about 
how  he  is  doing  it.  Even  if  other  people  make  diffi- 
culties in  your  way,  climb  over  them  and  do  not  worry ; 
they  are  your  karma,  and  after  all  these  things  from 
outside  do  not  really  matter.  Do  not  make  the  mistake 
of  thinking  that  others  are  trying  to  thwart  your  good 
purposes.  All  these  people  are  much  like  yourself; 
think  of  it — would  you  deliberately  choose  to  do  a 
wicked  thing  like  that? 


curiosity  167 

Curiosity 

Be  so  centred  in  your  work  that  you  have  no  time 
to  find  fault  with  others,  or  to  pry  into  their  affairs. 
If  only  each  man  would  mind  his  own  business  the 
world  would  be  infinitely  happier. 

This  prying  into  other  people's  affairs  works  much 
of  evil,  and  it  is  quite  accurate  to  say  that  the  person 
who  does  it  is  suffering  from  a  disease.  The  man  who 
is  prying  is  not  usually  doing  it  for  the  purpose  of 
helping,  but  simply  to  satisfy  his  curiosity  about  some- 
thing which  does  not  concern  him,  which  is  sympto- 
matic of  his  disease.  Another  symptom  is  that  the 
man  cannot  keep  to  himself  the  information  which  he 
has  so  nefariously  acquired,  but  must  everlastingly 
be  pouring  it  out  to  others  as  foolish  and  as  wicked 
as  himself.  For  it  is  wicked  beyond  all  doubt,  this 
gossip — one  of  the  wickedest  things  in  the  world. 
Ninety-nine  times  out  of  a  hundred  what  is  said  is  an 
absolute  fabrication,  but  it  does  an  enormous  amount 
of  harm. 

It  is  not  only  the  damage  done  to  another  person's 
reputation ;  that  is  the  least  part  of  the  evil.  The  gos- 
sip and  his  pestilential  cronies  perpetually  make 
thought-forms  of  some  evil  quality  which  they  choose 
to  attribute  to  their  victim,  and  then  proceed  to  hurl 
them  upon  him  in  an  unceasing  stream.  The  natural 
effect  of  this  will  be  to  awaken  in  him  the  evil  qual- 
ity of  which  they  accuse  him,  if  there  is  anything  at 
all  in  his  nature  which  will  respond  to  their  malicious 
efforts.  In  the  one  case  out  of  a  hundred  in  which 
there  is  some  truth  in  their  spiteful  prattle,  their 
thought-forms  intensify  the  evil,  and  so  they  pile  up 
for  themselves  a  store  of  the  terrible  karma  which 
comes  from  leading  a  brother  into  sin.    Theosophists 


168  THE  INNER  LIFE 

especially  should  be  careful  to  avoid  these  evils,  be- 
cause many  of  them  are  making  some  effort  in  the  di- 
rection of  developing  psychic  powers,  and  if  they 
should  use  those  for  the  purpose  of  prying  into  other 
people's  affairs  or  for  sending  evil  thoughts  to  them, 
their  karma  would  be  of  the  most  terrible  nature. 

Never  speak  unless  you  know,  and  not  even  then 
unless  you  are  absolutely  certain  that  some  definite 
good  will  come  of  it.  Before  you  speak  ask  yourself 
about  what  you  are  going  to  say:  "Is  it  true?  Is  it 
kind?  Is  it  useful?"  And  unless  you  can  answer 
these  three  questions  in  the  affirmative,  your  duty  is 
to  remain  silent.  I  am  well  aware  that  an  absolute 
following  of  this  rule  would  reduce  the  conversation 
of  the  world  by  about  ninety  per  cent,  but  that  would 
be  an  unspeakable  advantage,  and  the  world  would 
advance  much  more  rapidly. 

When  we  understand  the  underlying  unity  of  all  we 
cannot  be  otherwise  than  helpful,  we  cannot  stand 
aside  from  our  brother's  sorrow.  Of  course  there 
may  be  many  cases  where  physical  aid  is  impossible, 
but  at  least  we  can  always  give  the  help  of  sympathy, 
compassion  and  love,  and  this  is  clearly  our  duty.  For 
a  man  who  realizes  Theosophy  harshness  is  impossible. 
Any  member  who  acts  roughly  or  coarsely  is  failing 
in  his  Theosophy,  and  if  he  fails  in  patience  he  is 
failing  in  comprehension.  To  understand  all  is  to 
forgive  all,  to  love  all.  Every  man  has  his  own  point 
of  view,  and  the  shortest  road  for  one  man  is  not  by 
any  means  necessarily  the  best  for  another.  Every 
man  has  a  perfect  right  to  take  his  own  evolution  in 
hand  in  his  own  way,  and  to  do  with  regard  to  it  what 
he  chooses,  so  long  as  he  does  not  cause  suffering  or 
inconvenience  to  any  one  else.  It  is  emphatically  not 
our  business  to  try  to  put  everybody  right,  but  only 


KNOW  THYSELF  169 

to  see  that  all  is  right  on  our  side  in  our  relation  with 
others.  Before  we  undertake  an  effort  to  force  some- 
one else  into  our  path  it  will  be  best  for  us  carefully 
to  examine  his,  for  it  may  be  better  for  him.  We  ought 
to  be  always  ready  to  help  freely  to  the  fullest  extent 
of  our  power,  but  we  ought  never  to  interfere. 


Know  Thyself 

The  old  Greek  saying  Gnothi  seauton,  know  thyself, 
is  a  fine  piece  of  advice,  and  self-knowledge  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  any  candidate  for  progress.  And 
yet  we  must  beware  lest  our  necessary  self-examina- 
tion should  degenerate  into  morbid  introspection,  as 
it  often  does  with  some  of  the  best  of  our  students. 
Many  people  are  constantly  worrying  themselves  lest 
unawares  they  should  be  "sliding  back,"  as  they  call 
it.  If  they  understood  the  method  of  evolution  a  little 
better  they  would  see  that  no  one  can  slide  back  when 
the  whole  current  is  moving  steadily  forward. 

As  a  torrent  comes  rushing  down  a  slope,  many  little 
eddies  are  formed  behind  rocks,  or  perhaps  where  the 
water  is  whirling  round  and  round,  and  therefore  for 
the  moment  some  of  it  is  moving  backward;  but  yet 
the  whole  body  of  water,  eddies  and  all,  is  being  swept 
on  in  the  rush  of  the  torrent,  so  that  even  that  which 
is  apparently  moving  backwards  in  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  stream  is  really  being  hurried  forward  along 
with  the  rest.  Even  the  people  who  are  doing  nothing 
towards  their  evolution,  and  let  everything  go  as  it 
will,  are  all  the  while  gradually  evolving,  because  of 
the  irresistible  force  of  the  Logos  which  is  steadily 
pressing  them  onwards ;  but  they  are  moving  so  slowly 


170  THE  INNER  LIFE 

that  it  will  take  them  millions  of  years  of  incarna- 
tion and  trouble  and  uselessness  to  gain  even  a  step. 

The  method  in  which  this  is  managed  is  delightfully 
simple  and  ingenious.  All  the  evil  qualities  in  man  are 
vibrations  of  the  lower  matter  of  the  respective  planes. 
In  the  astral  body,  for  example,  selfishness,  anger,  ha- 
tred, jealousy,  sensuality,  and  all  qualities  of  this  kind 
are  invariably  expressed  by  vibrations  of  the  lower 
type  of  astral  matter,  while  love,  devotion,  sympathy, 
and  emotions  of  that  class  are  expressed  only  in  mat- 
ter of  the  three  higher  sub-planes.  From  this  flow 
two  remarkable  results.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  each  sub-plane  of  the  astral  vehicle  has  a  special 
relation  to  the  corresponding  sub-plane  in  the  mental 
body ;  or  to  put  it  more  accurately,  the  four  lower  sub- 
planes  of  the  astral  correspond  to  the  four  kinds  of 
matter  in  the  mental  body,  while  the  three  higher  cor- 
respond to  the  causal  vehicle. 

Therefore  it  will  be  seen  that  only  higher  qualities 
can  be  built  into  the  causal  body,  since  the  vibrations 
created  by  the  lower  can  find  in  it  no  matter  which  is 
capable  of  responding  to  them.  Thence  it  emerges 
that  while  any  good  which  the  man  developes  within 
himself  records  itself  permanently  by  a  change  in  his 
causal  body,  the  evil  which  he  does  and  thinks  and 
feels  cannot  possibly  touch  the  real  ego,  but  can  only 
cause  disturbance  and  trouble  to  the  mental  body,  which 
is  renewed  for  each  fresh  incarnation.  Of  course  the 
result  of  this  evil  does  store  itself  in  the  mental  and 
astral  permanent  atoms,  and  so  the  man  has  to  face 
it  over  and  over  again,  but  that  is  a  very  different 
matter  from  taking  it  into  the  ego  and  making  it  really 
a  part  of  himself. 

The  second  remarkable  result  produced  is  that  a 
certain  amount  of  force  directed  towards  good  pro- 


KNOW  THYSELF  171 

duces  an  enormously  greater  effect  in  proportion  than 
the  same  amount  of  force  directed  towards  evil.  If  a 
man  throws  a  certain  amount  of  energy  into  some  evil 
quality  it  has  to  express  itself  through  the  lower  and 
heavier  astral  matter;  and  while  any  kind  of  astral 
matter  is  exceedingly  subtle  as  compared  with  anything 
on  the  physical  plane,  yet  as  compared  with  the  higher 
matter  of  its  own  plane  it  is  just  as  gross  as  lead  is  on 
the  physical  plane  when  compared  with  the  finest  ether. 

If  therefore  a  man  should  exert  exactly  the  same 
amount  of  force  in  the  direction  of  good,  it  would  have 
to  move  through  the  much  finer  matter  of  these  higher 
sub-planes  and  would  produce  at  least  a  hundred  times 
as  much  effect,  or  if  we  compare  the  lowest  with  the 
highest,  probably  more  than  a  thousand  times.  Re- 
member that  even  in  addition  to  what  has  been  said  as 
to  the  effect  of  force  in  different  grades  of  matter,  we 
have  the  other  great  fact  that  the  Logos  Himself  is  by 
His  resistless  power  steadily  pressing  the  whole  sys- 
tem onwards  and  upwards,  and  that,  however  slow 
this  cyclic  progression  may  seem  to  us,  it  is  a  fact 
which  cannot  be  neglected,  for  its  effect  is  that  a  man 
who  accurately  balances  his  good  and  evil  comes  back, 
not  to  the  same  actual  position,  but  to  the  same  rela- 
tive position,  and  therefore  even  he  has  made  some 
slight  advance,  and  is  as  it  were  in  a  position  just  a 
little  better  than  that  which  he  has  actually  deserved 
and  made  for  himself. 

It  will  be  clear  from  these  considerations  that,  if  any 
one  is  so  foolish  as  to  want  to  get  really  backwards 
against  the  stream,  he  will  have  to  work  hard  and 
definitely  towards  evil;  there  is  no  fear  of  "sliding" 
back.  That  is  one  of  the  old  delusions  which  remains 
from  the  times  of  the  belief  in  the  orthodox  devil,  who 
was  so  much  stronger  than  God  that  everything  in 


172  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  world  was  working  in  his  favour.  Really  the  exact 
opposite  is  the  case,  and  everything  round  a  man  is 
calculated  to  assist  him,  if  he  only  understands  it. 

So  many  of  our  most  conscientious  people  are  just 
like  the  child  who  has  a  little  garden  of  his  own,  and 
constantly  pulls  up  his  plants  to  see  how  the  roots  are 
growing — with  the  result  of  course  that  nothing  grows 
at  all.  We  must  learn  not  to  think  of  ourselves  per- 
sonally, nor  of  our  personal  progress,  but  enter  the 
path  of  development,  go  on  working  for  others  to  the 
best  of  our  ability,  and  trust  our  progress  to  take  care 
of  itself.  The  more  a  scientist  thinks  about  himself 
the  less  mental  energy  he  has  for  the  problems  of 
science;  the  more  a  devotee  thinks  about  himself  the 
less  devotion  has  he  to  lavish  upon  his  object. 

Some  self-examination  is  necessary,  but  it  is  a  fatal 
mistake  to  spend  too  much  time  in  self-examination; 
it  is  like  spending  all  one's  time  in  oiling  and  tinker- 
ing at  the  machinery.  We  use  what  faculties  we  have, 
and  in  the  use  of  them  others  will  develope  and  true 
progress  will  be  made.  If  you  are  learning  a  language, 
for  example,  it  is  a  mistake  to  try  to  learn  it  from 
books  quite  perfectly  before  you  make  any  attempt  to 
speak  it;  you  must  plunge  into  it,  and  make  mistakes 
in  it,  and  in  the  effort  you  will  learn  in  due  course  to 
speak  without  mistake.  So  in  the  course  of  time  what 
is  called  renunciation  will  come  naturally,  and  even 
easily.  No  doubt  when  men  first  attempt  to  live  the 
higher  life  they  do  definitely  renounce  many  things 
which  are  pleasures  to  others — which  still  have  a  strong 
attraction  even  for  them ;  but  soon  the  man  finds  that 
the  attraction  of  such  pleasures  has  ceased,  and  that 
he  has  neither  time  nor  inclination  for  the  lower  en- 
joyments. 

Learn  above  all  things  not  to  worry.    Be  happy,  and 


KNOW  THYSELF  173 

make  the  best  of  everything.  Try  to  raise  yourself 
and  help  others.  Contentment  is  not  incompatible 
with  aspirations.  Optimism  is  justified  by  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  good,  though  if  we 
take  only  the  physical  plane  into  account  it  is  not  easy 
to  maintain  that  position.  One's  attitude  in  this  mat- 
ter depends  chiefly  upon  the  level  at  which  one  habit- 
ually keeps  one's  consciousness.  If  it  is  centred  chiefly 
in  the  physical  plane  one  sees  little  but  the  misery,  but 
when  it  becomes  possible  to  centre  it  at  a  higher  level 
the  joy  beyond  always  shines  through.  I  know  the 
Buddha  said  that  life  was  misery,  and  it  is  quite  true 
on  the  whole  with  regard  to  the  manifested  life  down 
here,  yet  the  Greeks  and  Egyptians  managed  to  extract 
much  joy  even  from  this  lower  life  by  taking  it  from 
the  philosophical  point  of  view. 

We  never  lose  anything  by  making  the  best  of  things, 
but  gain  very  much  in  happiness  and  in  the  power  of 
making  others  happy.  As  our  sympathy  and  our  love 
grow  we  shall  be  able  to  receive  within  ourselves  all 
the  streams  of  emotion  and  of  thought  which  come  to 
us  from  others,  and  yet  we  shall  remain  within  our- 
selves unaffected,  calm  and  joyous,  like  the  great  ocean 
which  receives  the  waters  of  many  rivers  and  yet 
remains  always  in  equilibrium. 

The  inner  life  of  an  aspirant  ought  not  to  be  one  of 
continual  oscillation.  Outer  moods  change  constantly 
because  they  are  affected  by  all  sorts  of  outside  influ- 
ences. If  you  find  yourself  depressed,  it  may  be  due 
to  any  one  of  half-a-dozen  reasons,  none  of  them  of  any 
real  importance.  The  physical  body  is  a  fertile  source 
of  such  ills;  a  trifling  indigestion,  a  slight  congestion 
in  the  circulation,  or  a  little  over-fatigue  may  account 
for  many  conditions  which  feel  quite  serious.  Even 
more  frequently  depression  is  caused  by  the  presence 


174  THE  INNER  LIFE 

of  some  astral  entity  who  is  himself  depressed,  and  is 
hovering  round  you  either  in  search  of  sympathy  or  in 
the  hope  of  drawing  from  you  the  vitality  which  he 
lacks.  We  must  simply  learn  to  disregard  depression 
altogether — to  throw  it  off  as  a  sin  and  a  crime  against 
our  neighbors,  which  it  really  is ;  but,  anyhow,  whether 
we  can  succeed  fully  in  dispersing  its  clouds  or  not  we 
must  learn  simply  to  go  on  as  though  it  were  not  there. 

Your  mind  is  your  own  mind,  into  which  you  should 
allow  entrance  only  to  such  thoughts  as  you,  the  ego, 
choose.  Your  astral  body  is  also  your  own,  and  you 
should  not  allow  in  it  any  sensations  except  those  which 
are  good  for  the  higher  self.  So  you  must  manage 
these  vibrations  of  depression,  and  absolutely  decline 
to  give  harbourage  to  them.  They  must  not  be  allowed 
to  impinge  upon  you.  If  they  do  so  impinge  they  must 
not  be  permitted  to  effect  a  lodgment.  If,  to  some 
slight  extent,  in  spite  of  your  efforts,  they  do  hang 
about  you,  then  it  is  your  duty  to  ignore  them  and  to 
let  no  one  else  know  that  they  even  exist. 

Sometimes  people  tell  me  they  have  had  moments  of 
splendid  inspiration  and  exaltation,  and  glowing  de- 
votion and  joy.  They  do  not  realize  that  these  are 
precisely  the  moments  when  the  higher  self  succeeds 
in  impressing  himself  upon  the  lower,  and  that  all  that 
which  they  feel  is  there  all  the  time,  but  the  lower  self 
is  not  always  conscious  of  it.  Realize  by  reason  and  by 
faith  that  it  is  always  there,  and  it  becomes  as  though 
we  felt  it,  even  in  the  time  when  the  link  is  imperfect 
and  down  here  we  feel  it  not. 

But  many  a  man,  while  admitting  the  truth  of  this 
in  the  abstract,  yet  says  that  he  cannot  perpetually  feel 
this  happiness  because  of  his  own  defects  and  constant 
failures.  His  attitude  in  fact  is  very  much  that  adopted 
in  the  litany:     "Have  mercy  upon  us  miserable  sin- 


KNOW  THYSELF  175 

ners."  Now  we  are  all  sinners  in  the  sense  that  we  all 
fall  short  of  what  we  ought  to  do,  and  constantly  do 
what  we  ought  not  to  do,  but  there  is  no  need  to  aggra- 
vate the  offense  by  being  miserable  sinners.  A  miser- 
able person  is  a  public  nuisance,  because  he  is  a  centre 
of  infection,  and  is  spreading  misery  and  sorrow  all 
round  upon  his  unfortunate  neighbours — a  thing  which 
no  man  has  a  right  to  do.  Any  man  with  just  the  same 
feelings,  who  contrives  to  keep  himself  reasonably 
happy  even  while  making  determined  efforts  to  reform, 
is  not  injuring  others  in  at  all  the  same  way. 

People  who  think  and  speak  of  themselves  as  misera- 
ble worms  are  going  exactly  the  right  way  to  make 
themselves  miserable  worms,  for  what  a  man  thinks, 
that  he  is.  All  such  talk  is  usually  hypocrisy,  as  you 
may  easily  see  from  the  fact  that  the  man  who  so 
readily  calls  himself  a  miserable  worm  in  church  would 
feel  distinctly  insulted  if  anybody  else  called  him  so  in 
ordinary  daily  life.  And  whether  it  is  hypocritical  or 
not  it  is  certainly  nonsense,  for  we  passed  the  reptilian 
stage  of  evolution  long  ago,  if  we  ever  were  in  it. 
Anyone  who  understands  at  all  the  influence  of  thought 
will  realize  that  a  man  who  really  thinks  himself  a 
miserable  worm  has  already  deprived  himself  of  any 
power  of  rising  out  of  that  state,  while  the  man  who 
realizes  strongly  that  he  is  a  spark  of  the  divine  life 
will  feel  ever  hopeful  and  joyous,  because  in  essence 
the  divine  is  always  joy.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  waste 
time  in  repentance ;  what  is  past  is  past,  and  no  amount 
of  remorse  can  undo  it.  As  one  of  our  own  Masters 
once  said,  "The  only  repentance  that  is  worth  anything 
whatever  is  the  resolve  not  to  do  it  again." 


176  THE  INNER  LIFE 


Asceticism 


Some  mistaken  ideas  seem  prevalent  among  our 
members  upon  the  subject  of  asceticism,  and  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  consider  what  it  really  is,  and  how  far 
it  may  be  useful.  The  word  is  usually  taken  to  signify 
a  life  of  austerities  and  of  mortification  of  the  body, 
though  this  is  somewhat  of  a  departure  from  the  orig- 
inal meaning  of  the  Greek  word  asketes,  which  is 
simply  one  who  exercises  himself  as  an  athlete  does. 
But  ecclesiasticism  impounded  the  word  and  changed 
its  sense,  applying  it  to  the  practice  of  all  sorts  of 
self-denial  for  the  purpose  of  spiritual  progress,  on 
the  theory  that  the  bodily  nature  with  its  passions  and 
desires  is  the  stronghold  of  the  evil  inherent  in  man 
since  the  fall  of  Adam,  and  that  it  must  therefore  be 
suppressed  by  fasting  and  penance.  In  the  grander 
Oriental  religions  we  sometimes  encounter  a  similar 
idea,  based  on  the  conception  of  matter  as  essentially 
evil,  and  following  from  that  the  deduction  that  an 
approach  to  ideal  good  or  an  escape  from  the  miseries 
of  existence  can  be  effected  only  by  subduing  or 
torturing  the  body. 

The  student  of  Theosophy  will  at  once  see  that  in 
both  these  theories  there  is  dire  confusion  of  thought. 
There  is  no  evil  inherent  in  man  except  such  as  he  has 
himself  generated  in  previous  births;  nor  is  matter 
essentially  evil,  since  it  is  just  as  much  divine  as  is 
spirit,  and  without  it  all  manifestation  of  the  Deity 
would  be  impossible.  The  body  and  its  desires  are  not 
in  themselves  evil  or  good,  but  it  is  true  that  before 
real  progress  can  be  made  they  must  be  brought  under 
the  control  of  the  higher  self  within.  To  torture  the 
body  is  foolish;  to  govern  it  is  necessary.  "The  men 
who  perform   severe  austerities unintelligent, 


ASCETICISM  177 

tormenting  the  aggregated  elements  forming  the  body, 
and  Me  also,  seated  in  the  inner  body — know  these 
demoniacal  in  their  resolves."  (Bhagavad-Gita,  xvii. 
5,  6.)  And  again,  "The  austerity  done  under  a  deluded 
understanding,  with  self-torture,  that  is  de- 
clared of  darkness."     (Ibid,  xvii.  19.) 

There  appears  to  be  a  widely-spread  delusion  that 
to  be  really  good  one  must  always  be  uncomfortable — 
that  discomfort  as  such  is  directly  pleasing  to  the 
Logos.  Nothing  can  be  more  grotesque  than  this  idea, 
and  in  the  above  quoted  texts  from  the  Bhagavad-Gita 
we  have  a  hint  that  it  is  perhaps  worse  than  grotesque, 
for  it  is  there  said  that  they  who  torment  the  body  are 
tormenting  the  Logos  enshrined  in  it.  With  us  in 
Europe  this  unfortunately  common  theory  is  one  of 
the  many  horrible  legacies  left  us  by  the  ghastly 
blasphemy  of  Calvinism.  I  myself  have  actually  heard 
a  child  say :  "I  feel  so  happy  that  I  am  sure  I  must  be 
very  wicked" — a  truly  awful  result  of  criminally 
distorted  teaching. 

Our  Masters,  who  are  so  far  above  us,  are  full  of  joy; 
full  of  sympathy,  but  not  of  sorrow.  We  also  must  feel 
sympathy  with  others,  but  not  identify  ourselves  with 
their  sorrow.  A  man  in  great  trouble  can  judge  noth- 
ing clearly.  To  his  vision  all  the  world  seems  dark, 
and  it  appears  as  if  no  one  should  be  happy.  When  he 
is  in  great  joy,  all  the  world  appears  bright,  and  it 
seems  as  if  no  one  ought  to  be  unhappy.  Yet  nothing 
is  changed,  not  even  he  himself,  but  only  his  astral 
body.  All  the  world  is  going  on  just  the  same,  whether 
you  are  happy  or  unhappy.  Do  not  identify  yourself 
with  your  astral  body,  but  try  to  get  out  of  this  web 
of  illusion,  these  personal  moods. 

No  doubt  this  ludicrous  theory  of  the  merit  of  dis- 
comfort comes  partly  from  the  knowledge  that  in  order 


178  THE  INNER  LIFE 

to  make  progress  man  must  control  his  passions,  and 
from  the  fact  that  such  control  is  disagreeable  to  the 
unevolved  person.  But  the  discomfort  is  very  far  from 
being  meritorious ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  sign  that  the 
victory  is  not  yet  achieved.  It  arises  from  the  fact  that 
the  lower  nature  is  not  yet  dominated,  and  that  a  strug- 
gle is  still  taking  place.  When  the  control  is  perfect 
there  will  no  longer  be  any  desire  for  the  lower,  conse- 
quently no  struggle  and  no  discomfort.  The  man  will 
live  the  right  life  and  avoid  the  lower  because  it  is 
perfectly  natural  for  him  to  do  so — no  longer  because 
he  thinks  he  ought  to  make  the  effort,  even  though  it 
may  be  difficult  for  him.  So  that  the  discomfort  exists 
only  at  an  intermediate  stage,  and  not  it,  but  its 
absence,  is  the  sign  of  success. 

Another  reason  for  the  gospel  of  the  uncomfortable 
is  a  confusion  of  cause  and  effect.  It  is  observed  that 
the  really  advanced  person  is  simple  in  his  habits,  and 
often  careless  about  a  large  number  of  minor  luxuries 
that  are  considered  important  and  really  necessary  by 
the  ordinary  man.  But  such  carelessness  about  luxury 
is  the  effect,  not  the  cause,  of  his  advancement.  He 
does  not  trouble  himself  about  these  little  matters 
because  he  has  largely  outgrown  them  and  they  no 
longer  interest  him — not  in  the  least  because  he  con- 
siders them  as  wrong ;  and  one  who,  while  still  craving 
for  them,  imitates  him  in  abstaining  from  them,  does 
not  thereby  become  advanced.  At  a  certain  stage  a 
child  plays  with  dolls  and  bricks ;  a  few  years  later  he 
has  become  a  boy  and  his  play  is  cricket  and  football ; 
later  again  when  he  is  a  young  man  these  in  turn  lose 
much  of  their  interest,  and  he  begins  to  play  the  game 
of  love  and  life.  But  an  infant  who  chooses  to  imitate 
his  elders,  who  throws  aside  his  dolls  and  bricks  and 
attempts  to  play  cricket,  does  not  thereby  transcend 


ASCETICISM  179 

his  infancy.  As  his  natural  growth  takes  place  he  puts 
away  childish  things ;  but  he  cannot  force  the  growth 
merely  by  putting  these  away,  and  playing  at  being 
older. 

There  is  no  virtue  whatever  merely  in  becoming 
uncomfortable  for  discomfort's  sake ;  but  there  are 
three  cases  in  which  voluntary  discomfort  may  be  a 
part  of  progress.  The  first  is  when  it  is  undertaken 
for  the  sake  of  helping  another,  as  when  a  man  nurses 
a  sick  friend  or  labours  hard  to  support  his  family. 
The  second  is  when  a  man  realizes  that  some  habit  to 
which  he  is  addicted  is  a  hindrance  in  his  upward 
way — such  a  habit,  say,  as  tobacco-smoking,  alcohol- 
drinking,  or  corpse-eating.  If  he  is  in  earnest  he  gives 
up  the  habit  instantly,  but  because  the  body  is  accus- 
tomed to  that  particular  form  of  pollution  it  misses  it, 
cries  out  for  it,  and  causes  the  man  a  great  deal  of 
trouble.  If  he  holds  firm  to  his  resolution  his  body  will 
presently  adapt  itself  to  the  new  conditions,  and  when 
it  has  done  so  there  will  be  no  further  discomfort.  But 
in  the  intermediate  stage,  while  the  battle  for  mastery 
between  the  man  and  his  body  is  still  being  fought, 
there  may  be  a  good  deal  of  suffering,  and  this  must 
be  taken  as  the  karma  of  having  adopted  the  vice  which 
he  is  now  forsaking.  When  the  suffering  passes  the 
karma  is  paid,  the  victory  is  won,  and  a  step  in 
evolution  is  achieved. 

I  am  aware  that  there  are  rare  cases  (when  people 
are  physically  very  weak)  in  which  it  might  be  danger- 
ous to  relinquish  a  bad  habit  instantaneously.  The 
morphine  habit  is  an  instance  in  point;  one  who  is  a 
victim  to  its  horrors  usually  finds  it  necessary  gradually 
to  decrease  the  dose,  because  the  strain  of  abrupt  cessa- 
tion might  well  be  greater  than  the  physical  body  could 
endure.    It  would  seem  that  there  are  certain  pitiable 


180  THE  INNER  LIFE 

cases  in  which  the  same  system  of  gradual  decrease 
must  be  applied  to  the  flesh-eating  habit.  Doctors  tell 
us  that  while  the  digestion  of  flesh  takes  place  chiefly 
in  the  stomach,  that  of  most  forms  of  vegetable  food 
belongs  to  the  work  of  the  intestines ;  and  therefore  a 
person  in  very  weak  health  sometimes  finds  it  advisable 
to  give  to  these  various  organs  a  certain  amount  of 
time  to  adjust  themselves  to  the  necessary  change,  and 
to  practise,  as  it  were,  the  functions  which  they  are 
now  required  to  fulfil.  The  steady  pressure  of  the  will, 
however,  will  soon  bring  the  body  into  subjection  and 
adapt  it  to  the  new  order  of  things. 

The  third  case  in  which  discomfort  may  have  its  use 
is  when  a  man  deliberately  forces  his  body  to  do  some- 
thing which  it  dislikes,  in  order  to  make  sure  that  it 
will  obey  him  when  necessary.  But  it  must  be  distinctly 
understood  that  even  then  the  merit  is  in  the  ready 
obedience  of  the  body,  and  not  in  its  suffering.  In  this 
way  a  man  may  gradually  learn  indifference  to  many 
of  the  minor  ills  of  life,  and  so  save  himself  much 
worry  and  irritation.  In  this  training  himself  in  will, 
and  his  body  in  obedience,  he  must  be  careful  to  attempt 
only  such  things  as  are  advantageous.  The  Hatha 
Yogi  developes  will-power,  assuredly,  when  he  holds 
his  arm  above  his  head  until  it  withers;  but  while  he 
gains  enormously  in  will-power  he  also  loses  the  use 
of  his  arm.  The  will-power  can  be  developed  just  as 
well  by  some  effort  the  result  of  which  will  be  per- 
manently useful  instead  of  permanently  hampering — 
by  the  conquest,  for  example,  of  irritability  or  pride, 
impatience  or  sensuality.  It  would  be  well  if  all  who 
feel  a  yearning  for  asceticism  would  take  to  heart  the 
words  of  wisdom  in  the  Bhagavad-Gita: 

"Purity,  straightforwardness,  continence  and  harm- 
lessness  are  called  the  austerity  of  the  body.     Speech 


SMALL  WORRIES  181 

causing  no  annoyance,  truthful,  pleasant  and  beneficial 
is  called  the  austerity  of  speech.  Mental  hap- 
piness, equilibrium,  silence,  self-control,  purity  of 
nature — this  is  called  the  austerity  of  the  mind." 
(xvii.  14,  15,  16.) 

Note  especially  that  in  this  last  verse  mental  happi- 
ness is  described  as  the  first  characteristic  of  the 
austerity  of  the  mind — the  first  sign  of  the  perfect 
self-control  necessary  for  one  who  wishes  to  make  real 
progress.  It  is  emphatically  our  duty  to  be  happy; 
morbidity,  gloom  or  depression  mean  always  failure 
and  weakness,  because  they  mean  selfishness.  The 
man  who  allows  himself  to  brood  over  his  own  sorrows 
or  wrongs  is  forgetting  his  duty  to  his  fellows.  He 
permits  himself  to  become  a  centre  of  infection,  spread- 
ing gloom  instead  of  joy  among  his  brethren ;  what  is 
this  but  the  grossest  selfishness?  If  there  be  any  one 
who  feels  a  yearning  for  asceticism,  let  him  take  up 
this  mental  austerity  advised  in  the  scripture,  and 
resolve  that  whatever  may  be  his  private  troubles  or 
sufferings  he  will  forget  himself  and  them  for  the  sake 
of  others,  so  that  he  may  ever  be  pouring  forth  upon 
his  fellow-pilgrims  the  radiant  happiness  which  comes 
from  the  fuller  knowledge  of  the  Theosophist,  ever 
helping  them  towards  the  realization  that  "Brahman 
is  bliss." 


Small  Worries 

Unnecessary  worry  appears  to  be  the  key-note  of 
modern  life.  Not  only  those  who  are  making  special 
efforts  to  progress  are  making  themselves  unreasonably 
uncomfortable,  but  the  same  vice  is  quite  common  even 
in  ordinary  life.    The  astral  body  of  the  average  man 


182  THE  INNER  LIFE 

is  a  sad  sight  for  a  clairvoyant.  The  illustration  in 
Man  Visible  and  Invisible  (p.  131)  shows  what  an 
astral  body  ought  to  be — merely  a  reflection  of  the 
colours  of  the  mental,  indicating  that  the  man  allows 
himself  to  feel  only  what  his  reason  dictates.  But  if 
that  be  too  much  to  expect  at  this  stage  of  evolution, 
the  picture  on  p.  102  gives  us  an  assortment  of  colours 
which  represents  an  average  astral  body  when  com- 
paratively at  rest.  In  it  there  are  many  hues  which 
show  the  presence  of  undesirable  qualities — qualities 
which  should  be  weeded  out  as  soon  as  may  be :  but  that 
side  of  the  subject  is  treated  in  the  book,  and  it  is  to 
another  feature  that  I  wish  now  to  draw  attention. 

I  have  said  that  the  illustration  shows  what  an 
ordinary  undeveloped  astral  body  would  look  like  if 
comparatively  at  rest ;  but  one  of  the  evils  of  what  we 
have  agreed  to  call  civilization  is  that  hardly  any  astral 
body  ever  is  even  comparatively  at  rest.  Of  course  it  is 
understood  that  the  matter  of  an  astral  body  must 
always  be  in  perpetual  vibration,  and  each  of  the 
colours  that  we  see  in  the  drawing  marks  a  different 
rate  of  that  vibration ;  but  there  should  be  a  certain 
order  in  this,  and  a  certain  limit  to  it.  The  more 
developed  man  (on  p.  131)  has  five  rates  of  vibration, 
but  the  ordinary  man  shows  at  least  nine  rates,  with  a 
mixture  of  varying  shades  in  addition.  That  is  clearly 
not  so  good  as  the  other,  but  the  case  of  the  majority 
of  people  in  the  West  is  really  far  worse  than  that. 
To  have  even  nine  rates  of  simultaneous  vibration  is 
already  bad  enough,  but  in  the  astral  body  of  many  a 
man  and  woman  one  might  easily  observe  fifty  rates 
or  even  a  hundred.  The  body  should  be  divided  into  a 
few  fairly  definite  areas,  each  swinging  steadily  at  its 
normal  rate,  but  instead  of  that,  its  surface  is  usually 
broken  up  into  a  multiplicity  of  little  whirl-pools  and 


SMALL  WORRIES  183 

cross-currents,  all  battling  one  against  the  other  in  the 
maddest  confusion. 

All  these  are  the  result  of  little  unnecessary  emotions 
and  worries,  and  the  ordinary  person  of  the  West  is 
simply  a  mass  of  these.  He  is  troubled  about  this 
thing,  he  is  annoyed  about  that,  he  is  in  fear  about  a 
third,  and  so  on ;  his  whole  life  is  filled  with  petty  little 
emotions,  and  all  his  strength  is  frittered  away  on 
them.  A  really  great  emotion,  be  it  good  or  bad, 
sweeps  over  the  whole  of  a  man's  astral  body  and  for 
the  time  brings  it  all  to  one  rate  of  vibration ;  but  these 
small  worries  make  little  vortices  or  centres  of  local 
disturbance,  each  of  which  persists  for  a  considerable 
time. 

The  astral  body  which  thus  vibrates  fifty  ways  at 
once  is  a  blot  upon  the  landscape  and  a  nuisance  to  its 
neighbors.  It  is  not  only  a  very  ugly  object — it  is  also 
a  serious  annoyance.  It  may  be  compared  to  a  physical 
body  suffering  from  some  unusually  aggravated  form 
of  palsy,  with  all  its  muscles  jerking  simultaneously  in 
different  directions.  But  to  make  the  illustration  even 
partially  adequate  we  should  have  to  assume  that  this 
palsy  was  contagious,  or  that  every  one  who  saw  its 
unfortunate  results  felt  an  irresistible  tendency  to 
reproduce  them.  For  this  horrible  chaos  of  catas- 
trophic confusion  produces  an  unpleasant  and  most 
disturbing  effect  upon  all  sensitive  people  who  approach 
it;  it  infects  their  astral  bodies  and  communicates  to 
them  a  painful  sensation  of  unrest  and  worry. 

Only  a  few  have  yet  unfolded  the  faculties  which 
enable  them  to  see  this  maleficent  influence  in  action; 
a  larger  number  are  vaguely  conscious  of  discomfort 
when  they  approach  one  of  these  fussy  persons ;  but 
probably  the  majority  feel  nothing  definite  at  the  time 
of  meeting,  though  later  in  the  day  they  will  probably 


184  THE  INNER  LIFE 

wonder  why  they  are  so  inexplicably  fatigued.  The 
effect  is  there  and  the  harm  is  done,  whether  it  be 
immediately  perceptible  or  not. 

A  person  who  is  so  foolish  as  to  allow  himself  to  get 
into  this  condition  does  much  harm  to  many,  but  most 
of  all  to  himself.  Frequently  the  perpetual  astral  dis- 
turbance reacts  through  the  etheric  upon  the  dense 
physical  vehicle,  and  all  sorts  of  nervous  diseases  are 
produced.  Nearly  all  nerve  troubles  are  the  direct 
result  of  unnecessary  worry  and  emotion,  and  would 
soon  disappear  if  the  patient  would  but  hold  his 
vehicles  still  and  possess  his  soul  in  peace. 

But  even  in  cases  where  a  strong  physical  body  is 
able  successfully  to  resist  this  constant  irritation  from 
the  astral,  its  effect  upon  its  own  plane  is  no  less  dis- 
astrous. These  tiny  centres  of  inflammation  which 
thus  cover  the  whole  astral  body  are  to  it  what  boils 
are  to  the  physical  body — not  only  themselves  causes  of 
acute  discomfort,  sore  spots  the  least  touch  upon  which 
produces  terrible  pain,  but  also  weak  spots  through 
which  the  life-blood  of  vitality  drains  away,  and 
through  which  also  blood-poisoning  from  without  may 
take  place.  A  person  whose  astral  body  is  in  this  dis- 
tracted condition  can  offer  practically  no  resistance  to 
any  evil  influence  which  he  may  encounter,  while  he  is 
quite  unable  to  profit  by  good  influences.  His  strength 
flows  out  through  these  open  sores,  at  the  same  time 
that  all  sorts  of  disease-germs  find  entrance  by  them. 
He  is  not  using  and  controlling  his  astral  body  as  a 
whole,  but  allowing  it  to  break  up  into  a  number  of 
separate  centres  and  control  him.  His  little  worries 
and  vexations  establish  themselves  and  confirm  their 
empire  over  him  until  they  become  a  legion  of  devils 
who  possess  him  so  that  he  cannot  escape  from  them. 

This  is  a  painfully  common  condition ;  how  is  a  man 


SMALL  WORRIES  185 

to  avoid  falling  into  it,  and  if  he  is  already  in  it,  how  is 
he  to  get  out  of  it?  The  answer  is  the  same  to  both 
questions ;  let  him  learn  not  to  worry,  not  to  fear,  not 
to  be  annoyed.  Let  him  reason  with  himself  as  to  the 
utter  unimportance  of  all  these  little  personal  matters 
which  have  loomed  so  large  upon  his  horizon.  Let  him 
consider  how  they  will  appear  when  he  looks  back  upon 
them  from  the  next  life,  or  even  twenty  years  hence. 
Let  him  lay  well  to  heart  the  words  of  wisdom,  that  of 
all  the  outward  things  that  happen  to  a  man  "nothing 
matters  much,  and  most  things  matter  not  at  all." 
What  he  himself  does  or  says  or  thinks  is  of  importance 
to  him,  for  that  forms  his  future ;  what  other  people  do 
or  say  or  think  matters  to  him  nothing  whatever.  Let 
him  abstract  himself  from  all  these  little  pin-pricks  of 
daily  life,  and  simply  decline  to  be  worried  by  them. 

It  will  need  some  resolution  at  first,  for  it  requires 
effort  to  conquer  a  well-established  bad  habit.  He  will 
find  his  mind  muttering  to  him  over  and  over  again: 
"Mrs.  Jones  spoke  evil  of  me;  perhaps  she  is  doing  it 
now;  perhaps  other  people  may  believe  her;  perhaps 
it  may  do  me  harm,"  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  But  he 
must  reply:  "I  don't  care  what  Mrs.  Jones  has  said, 
though  I  am  sorry  the  poor  woman  should  make  such 
bad  karma.  I  absolutely  decline  to  think  of  it  or  of  her. 
I  have  my  work  to  do,  and  have  no  time  to  waste  in 
thinking  of  foolish  gossip." 

Or  it  may  be  that  forebodings  of  coming  evil  are  con- 
stantly thrusting  themselves  into  his  brain :  "Perhaps 
next  year  I  may  lose  my  position ;  perhaps  I  shall  be 
starving;  perhaps  I  shall  be  bankrupt;  perhaps  I  may 
lose  the  affection  of  some  friend."  This  also  should  be 
met  firmly :  Perhaps  all  these  things  may  happen,  but 
also  perhaps  they  may  not,  and  it  is  useless  to  try  to 
cross  a  bridge  before  one  comes  to  it.    I  shall  take  all 


186  THE  INNER  LIFE 

reasonable  precautions,  and  when  that  is  done  I  decline 
to  think  further  of  the  matter.  Worrying  cannot  affect 
whatever  may  be  coming,  but  it  can  and  certainly  will 
make  me  unfit  to  meet  it.  Therefore  I  refuse  to  worry ; 
I  definitely  turn  my  back  on  the  whole  subject." 

Another  common  form  of  worry  which  leads  to  the 
most  serious  results  is  the  folly  of  taking  offense  at 
something  which  somebody  else  says  or  does.  Ordi- 
narily common-sense  would  lead  a  man  to  avoid  this 
mistake,  and  yet  those  who  do  avoid  it  are  few.  It 
needs  only  that  we  should  think  dispassionately  about 
the  matter,  and  we  shall  see  that  what  the  other  man 
has  said  or  done  cannot  make  any  difference  to  us. 
If  he  has  said  something  which  has  hurt  our  feelings, 
we  may  be  sure  that  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  has  not 
meant  it  to  be  offensive ;  why  then  should  we  allow  our- 
selves to  be  disturbed  about  the  matter?  Even  in  the 
rare  cases  when  a  remark  is  intentionally  rude  or  spite- 
ful, where  a  man  has  said  something  purposely  to 
wound  another,  it  is  still  exceedingly  foolish  of  that 
other  to  allow  himself  to  feel  hurt.  If  the  man  had  an 
evil  intention  in  what  he  said,  he  is  much  to  be  pitied, 
for  we  know  that  under  the  law  of  divine  justice  he  will 
certainly  suffer  for  his  foolishness.  What  he  has  said 
need  in  no  way  affect  us,  for,  if  we  think  of  it,  no  effect 
whatever  has  really  been  produced. 

The  irritating  word  does  not  in  any  way  injure  us, 
except  in  so  far  as  we  may  choose  to  take  it  up  and 
injure  ourselves  by  brooding  over  it  or  allowing  our- 
selves to  be  wounded  in  our  feelings.  What  are  the 
words  of  another,  that  we  should  let  our  serenity  be 
disturbed  by  them  ?  They  are  merely  a  vibration  in  the 
atmosphere ;  if  it  had  not  happened  that  we  heard  them, 
or  heard  of  them,  would  they  have  affected  us?  If  not, 
then  it  is  obviously  not  the  words  that  have  injured  us, 


SMALL  WORRIES  187 

but  the  fact  that  we  heard  them.  So  if  we  allow  our- 
selves to  care  about  what  a  man  has  said,  it  is  we  who 
are  responsible  for  the  disturbance  created  in  our  astral 
bodies,  and  not  he. 

The  man  has  done  and  can  do  nothing  that  can  harm 
us;  if  we  feel  hurt  and  injured  and  thereby  make  our- 
selves a  great  deal  of  trouble,  we  have  only  ourselves 
to  thank  for  it.  If  a  disturbance  arises  within  our 
astral  bodies  in  reference  to  what  he  has  said,  that  is 
merely  because  we  have  not  yet  gained  control  over 
those  bodies;  we  have  not  yet  developed  the  calmness 
which  enables  us  to  look  down  as  souls  upon  all  this, 
and  go  on  our  way  and  attend  to  our  own  work  without 
taking  the  slightest  notice  of  foolish  or  spiteful  remarks 
made  by  other  men.  This  is  the  merest  common-sense, 
yet  not  one  in  a  hundred  will  act  upon  it. 

The  fact  is  that  any  one  who  wishes  to  become  a 
student  of  occultism  must  not  have  any  personal  feel- 
ings that  can  be  offended  under  any  circumstances 
whatever.  A  man  who  has  them  is  still  thinking  of 
himself;  whereas  our  duty  is  to  forget  ourselves  in 
order  to  remember  the  good  of  others.  Nothing  can 
offend  you  if  you  have  resolved  not  to  be  offended — if 
you  are  thinking  only  how  to  help  the  other  man,  and 
not  at  all  of  yourself. 

Another  variant  of  the  disease  is  less  personal  and 
therefore  is  so  far  less  blame-worthy,  but  hardly  less 
prejudicial  to  progress.  It  is  the  habit  of  fussing  over 
trifles  in  business  or  in  household  affairs.  This  always 
involves  a  lack  of  discrimination  and  of  the  sense  of 
perspective.  It  is  quite  true  that  a  household  or  a 
business  must  be  orderly,  that  things  must  be  done 
punctually  and  exactly ;  but  the  way  to  achieve  this  is 
to  set  up  a  high  ideal  and  press  steadily  towards  it — not 
to  irritate  every  one  by  ceaseless,  useless  worry.    The 


188  THE  INNER  LIFE 

person  who  is  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  afflicted  with  a 
disposition  of  this  kind  should  make  a  most  determined 
fight  against  it,  for  until  he  conquers  it  he  will  be  a  force 
working  always  for  friction  and  not  for  peace,  and  so 
will  be  of  little  real  use  in  the  world.  His  symptoms 
differ  slightly  from  those  of  the  more  personal  worrier ; 
in  his  case  there  are  fewer  of  the  carbuncular  vortices, 
but  there  is  a  perpetual  tremor,  an  unrest  of  the  whole 
astral  body  which  is  equally  disquieting  to  others, 
equally  subversive  of  happiness  and  advancement  for 
the  fusser  himself. 

The  man  must  learn  to  be  master  of  his  mind  and 
his  feelings,  and  steadily  reject  every  thought  and  emo- 
tion which  his  highest  self  does  not  approve.  A  chaos 
of  petty  emotions  is  unworthy  of  a  rational  being,  and 
it  is  to  the  last  degree  undignified  that  man,  who  is  a 
spark  of  the  Divine,  should  allow  himself  to  fall  under 
the  sway  of  his  desire-elemental — a  thing  that  is  not 
even  a  mineral  yet. 

I  have  already  said  that  this  disastrous  astral  con- 
fusion is  often  prejudicial  to  physical  health;  but  it  is 
invariably  worse  than  prejudicial  to  progress  on  the 
path — it  is  absolutely  fatal  to  it.  One  of  the  first  great 
lessons  to  be  learnt  on  that  path  is  perfect  self-control, 
and  a  long  stage  on  the  way  to  that  is  complete  absence 
of  worry.  At  first,  from  mere  habit,  the  matter  of  the 
astral  body  will  still  be  swept  readily  into  unnecessary 
vortices,  but  every  time  that  happens  the  man  must 
firmly  obliterate  them,  and  restore  the  steady  swing  of 
the  feelings  which  he,  as  an  ego,  really  desires  to  have. 

Let  him  fill  himself  so  entirely  with  the  divine  love 
that  it  may  be  ever  pouring  from  him  in  all  directions 
in  the  shape  of  love  for  his  fellow-men,  and  then  there 
will  be  no  room  for  unnecessary  vibrations;  he  will 
have  no  time  to  worry  over  trifling  personal  matters 


KILLING  OUT  DESIRE  189 

if  his  whole  life  is  spent  in  the  service  of  the  Logos, 
in  trying  to  help  forward  the  evolution  of  the  world. 
To  make  any  real  progress  or  to  do  any  real  work  a 
man  must  turn  from  the  lower  and  reach  towards  the 
higher;  he  must  come  out  of  our  world  into  Theirs — 
out  of  the  restlessness  into  the  peace  which  passeth 
understanding. 


Killing  Out  Desire 

We  are  often  told  that  we  must  kill  out  desire ;  but 
it  should  be  remembered  that  that  is  a  gradual  process. 
The  lower  and  coarser  desires  which  are  meant  by  the 
Sanskrit  word  kama  must  certainly  be  killed  out  en- 
tirely before  any  sort  of  advancement  can  be  made,  but 
in  the  English  sense  of  the  word  we  all  of  us  still  have 
certain  desires,  and  are  likely  to  have  them  for  a  very 
long  time  to  come.  We  desire  keenly,  for  example,  tc 
serve  the  Master ;  to  become  His  pupils ;  to  help  human- 
ity. These  also  are  desires,  but  they  should  not  be 
killed.  What  is  necessary  is  to  kill  out  the  lower  and 
reach  up  to  the  higher,  that  is  to  say,  to  purify  our  de- 
sires and  to  transmute  them  into  aspirations. 

Later  on  another  transmutation  will  take  place.  For 
example,  now  we  desire  to  make  progress ;  but  a  time 
will  come  when  we  shall  be  so  sure  of  it  that  we  shall 
cease  to  desire,  because  we  know  that  all  the  time  it  is 
going  on  as  rapidly  as  is  possible  for  us,  and  because 
we  mean  that  it  shall  so  go  on.  Desire  is  then  trans- 
muted into  resolution.  At  this  point  there  can  be  no 
more  regret  for  anything;  you  do  your  best  and  you 
know  that  in  response  to  that  the  best  must  come. 
Some  people  desire  earnestly  to  gain  this  quality  or 


190  THE  INNER  LIFE 

that ;  do  not  waste  your  power  in  desiring  and  wishing, 
but  tv ill  instead. 

In  the  same  way  it  is  said  that  we  should  slay  the 
lunar  form,  that  is  to  say  the  astral  body.  But  that 
does  not  mean  that  the  astral  body  must  be  destroyed 
or  that  we  must  be  without  feelings  and  emotions.  If 
that  could  be  so  we  should  have  no  sympathy  and  no 
understanding  of  others.  What  is  intended  is  that  we 
should  keep  it  completely  under  control,  that  we  should 
have  the  faculty  to  slay  the  lunar  form  at  will.  Purity 
is  necessary,  but  it  means  not  only  the  abstinence  from 
specified  faults,  but  absolute  selflessness.  Ambition, 
for  example,  is  a  very  common  form  of  desire,  but  in  it 
there  is  always  a  thought  of  self.  The  adept  cannot 
be  ambitious.  His  will  is  one  with  the  will  of  the 
Logos,  and  He  wills  evolution.  We  are  all  parts  of  the 
Logos,  and  our  wills  are  part  of  His.  It  is  only  when 
we  do  not  realize  this  that  we  set  up  desires  in  our  own 
separate  lines.  The  regulations  for  our  lives  were  very 
well  summed  up  by  the  Lord  Buddha  in  one  little  verse 
of  four  short  lines : 

Sabbapapassa  akaranam 
Kusalassa  upasampada 
Sachitta  pariyo  dapanam 
Etam  Buddhana  sasanam. 

Cease  from  all  evil; 

Learn  to  do  well; 

Cleanse  your  own  heart; 

This  is  the  religion  of  the  Buddhas. 


the  centre  of  my  circle  191 

The  Centre  of  My  Circle 

Of  all  the  many  obstacles  that  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
aspirant  who  wishes  to  enter  upon  the  Path,  the  most 
serious,  because  the  most  far-reaching  and  funda- 
mental, is  self-centredness.  Note  that  by  this  I  do  not 
mean  the  crude  and  ugly  selfishness,  which  definitely 
seeks  everything  for  itself  even  at  the  cost  of  others. 
I  am,  of  course,  supposing  that  that  at  least  has  been 
left  behind  long  ago.  But  in  those  who  have  left 
it  behind,  there  still  lingers  this  other  evil — so  subtle 
and  so  deeply-rooted  that  they  do  not  recognize  it  as 
an  evil  at  all — indeed,  they  are  not  even  aware  of  its 
existence.  But  let  a  man  examine  himself  honestly  and 
impartially,  and  he  will  find  that  all  his  thought  is  self- 
centred  ;  he  thinks  often  of  other  people  and  of  other 
things,  but  always  in  their  relation  to  himself;  he 
weaves  many  imaginary  dramas,  but  he  himself  occu- 
pies always  a  prominent  role  in  them.  He  must  always 
be  in  the  centre  of  his  little  stage,  with  the  limelight 
playing  upon  him ;  if  he  is  not  in  that  position  he  at 
once  feels  hurt,  annoyed,  angry,  and  jealous  of  any 
other  person  who  happens  for  the  moment  to  be  at- 
tracting the  attention  of  those  who  ought  to  be  worship- 
ping at  his  shrine.  To  change  so  fundamental  a  quality 
is  to  change  for  him  the  root  of  all  things,  to  make  him- 
self into  an  altogether  different  man.  Most  people 
cannot  for  a  moment  face  the  possibility  of  such  a 
radical  change  because  they  do  not  even  know  that  the 
condition  exists. 

Now,  this  attitude  is  absolutely  fatal  to  any  kind  of 
progress.  It  must  be  utterly  changed,  and  yet  so  few 
are  making  any  attempt  to  change  it.  There  is  one 
way  out  of  this  vicious  circle,  and  only  one;  and  that 
is  the  way  of  love.    That  is  the  only  thing  in  the  life 


192  THE  INNER  LIFE 

of  the  ordinary  man  which  ever  changes  this  condition 
for  him,  which  seizes  upon  him  with  a  strong  hand  and 
for  the  time  being  alters  his  whole  attitude.  For  a 
time,  at  least,  when  he  falls  in  love,  as  it  is  called,  some 
other  person  occupies  the  centre  of  his  circle,  and  he 
thinks  of  everything  in  all  the  world  in  its  relation  to 
her,  and  not  in  its  relation  to  himself.  The  divinity  at 
whose  shrine  he  offers  this  worship  may  in  truth  seem 
to  the  rest  of  the  world  to  be  but  a  very  ordinary  per- 
son, but  for  him  she  is  temporarily  the  incarnation  of 
grace  and  beauty ;  he  sees  in  her  the  divinity  which  is 
in  truth  hers,  because  it  lies  latent  in  all  of  us,  though 
normally  we  do  not  see  it.  It  is  true  that  in  many 
cases  after  a  time  his  enthusiasm  fades  and  he  trans- 
fers it  to  another  object ;  but  nevertheless  for  the  time 
he  has  ceased  to  be  self-centred,  for  the  time  he  has  had 
a  wider  outlook. 

Now  this,  which  the  ordinary  man  thus  does  uncon- 
sciously, the  student  of  occultism  must  do  consciously. 
He  must  deliberately  dethrone  himself  from  the  centre 
of  the  circle  of  his  life,  and  he  must  enthrone  the  Mas- 
ter there  instead.  He  has  been  in  the  habit  of  thinking 
instinctively  how  everything  will  affect  him,  or  what 
he  can  make  of  it,  how  he  can  turn  it  to  his  profit  and 
pleasure.  Instead  of  that  he  must  now  learn  to  think  of 
everything  as  it  affects  the  Master,  and  since  the  Mas- 
ter lives  only  to  help  the  evolution  of  humanity,  that 
means  that  he  must  regard  everything  from  the  stand- 
point of  its  helpfulness  or  hindrance  to  the  cause  of  evo- 
lution. And  though  at  first  he  will  have  to  do  this 
consciously  and  with  a  certain  effort,  he  must  persevere 
until  he  does  it  just  as  unconsciously,  just  as  instinct- 
ively as  heretofore  he  centred  everything  around  him- 
self. To  use  the  words  of  a  Master,  he  must  forget 
himself  utterly  only  to  remember  the  good  of  others. 


THE  CENTRE  OF  MY  CIRCLE  193 

But  even  when  he  has  dethroned  himself  and  en- 
throned the  work  which  he  has  to  do,  he  must  be  ex- 
ceedingly careful  that  he  does  not  delude  himself,  that 
he  does  not  return  to  the  old  self-centredness  in  a  sub- 
tler form.  Many  a  good  and  earnest  Theosophical 
worker  have  I  known  who  committed  this  very  mis- 
take, who  identified  Theosophical  work  with  himself, 
and  felt  that  anyone  who  did  not  exactly  agree  with  his 
ideas  and  his  methods  was  an  enemy  of  Theosophy.  So 
often  the  worker  thinks  that  his  way  is  the  only  way, 
and  that  to  differ  from  him  in  opinion  is  to  be  a  traitor 
to  the  cause.  But  this  means  only  that  the  self  has 
crept  skilfully  back  into  its  old  place  in  the  centre  of 
the  circle,  and  that  the  work  of  dislodging  it  must  be 
begun  all  over  again.  The  only  power  which  the  dis- 
ciple should  desire  is  that  which  makes  him  seem  as 
nothing  in  the  eyes  of  men.  When  he  is  the  centre  of 
his  circle  he  may  do  good  work,  but  it  is  always  with  the 
feeling  that  he  is  doing  it,  even  largely  with  the  object 
that  it  may  be  he  that  does  it ;  but  when  the  Master  is 
the  centre  of  his  circle  he  will  do  the  work  simply  in 
order  that  it  may  be  done.  The  work  is  done  for  the 
sake  of  the  work  and  not  for  the  sake  of  the  doer.  And 
he  must  learn  to  look  upon  his  own  work  precisely  as 
though  it  were  that  of  some  one  else,  and  upon  the 
work  of  some  one  else  precisely  as  though  it  were  his 
own.  The  one  thing  that  is  important  is  that  the  work 
should  be  done.  It  matters  little  who  does  it.  There- 
fore, he  ought  neither  to  be  prejudiced  in  favour  of  his 
own  work  and  unduly  critical  of  that  of  another,  nor  be 
hypocritically  depreciatory  of  his  own  work  in  order 
that  others  may  praise  it.  To  quote  the  words  of 
Ruskin  with  regard  to  art,  he  ought  to  be  able  to  say 
serenely :  "Be  it  mine  or  yours,  or  whose  else  it  may, 
this  also  is  well." 


194  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Another  danger  there  is,  too,  which  is  special  to  the 
Theosophical  worker — the  danger  of  congratulating 
himself  too  soon  that  he  differs  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Theosophical  teaching  puts  a  new  complexion 
upon  everything,  so  naturally  we  feel  that  our  attitude 
is  quite  different  from  that  of  most  other  people.  There 
is  no  harm  in  thinking  this  obvious  truth,  but  I  have 
found  that  some  of  our  members  are  apt  to  pride  them- 
selves upon  the  fact  that  they  are  able  to  recognize 
these  things.  It  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that  we, 
who  find  ourselves  able  to  recognize  them  are,  there- 
fore, better  than  others.  Other  men  have  developed 
themselves  along  other  lines,  and  along  those  lines 
they  may  be  very  far  in  advance  of  us,  though  along 
our  line  they  lack  something  which  we  already  have. 
Remember,  the  adept  is  the  perfect  man  who  is  fully 
developed  along  all  possible  lines,  and  so  while  we  have 
something  to  teach  these  others  we  also  have  much  to 
learn  from  them,  and  it  would  be  the  height  of  folly  to 
despise  a  man  because  he  has  not  yet  acquired  Theo- 
sophical knowledge,  nor  even  perhaps  the  qualities 
which  enable  him  to  appreciate  it.  Therefore,  in  this 
sense  also  we  must  take  care  not  to  be  the  centre  of  our 
own  circle. 

A  good  plan  that  you  may  adopt  in  order  to  keep 
yourself  from  slipping  back  into  the  centre  may  be  to 
remember,  as  a  symbol  of  what  ought  to  Be  your  atti- 
tude, what  I  have  before  explained  to  you  with  regard 
to  the  occult  view  of  the  course  and  influence  of  the 
planets.  You  remember  how  I  explained  to  you  that 
each  planet  is  a  minor  focus  in  an  ellipse,  the  major 
focus  of  which  is  within  the  body  of  the  sun.  You  are 
like  that  minor  focus;  you  are  going  upon  your  own 
course  and  doing  the  work  appointed  to  you,  and  yet 
all  the  time  you  are  but  a  reflection  of  the  major  focus, 


THE  CENTRE  OF  MY  CIRCLE  195 

and  your  consciousness  is  centred  within  the  sun,  for 
the  Master  of  whom  you  are  a  part  is  a  member  of 
the  Great  Hierarchy  which  is  ever  doing  the  work  of 
the  Logos. 

While  a  man  is  the  centre  of  his  own  circle  he  is 
perpetually  making  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  he  is 
the  centre  of  everybody  else's.  He  constantly  supposes 
that  in  everything  which  other  people  say  or  do  they 
are  somehow  thinking  of  him,  or  aiming  their  remarks 
at  him,  and  with  many  this  becomes  a  kind  of  obsession, 
and  they  seem  totally  unable  to  realize  that  each  of 
their  neighbours  is  as  a  rule  also  entirely  wrapped  up 
in  himself  and  not  thinking  of  them  at  all.  So  the  man 
makes  for  himself  a  great  deal  of  totally  unnecessary 
trouble  and  worry,  all  of  which  might  be  avoided  if  we 
would  but  see  things  in  a  sane  and  rational  perspective. 
Again,  it  is  because  he  is  the  centre  of  his  own  circle 
that  he  is  liable  to  depression,  for  that  comes  only  to 
one  who  is  thinking  of  himself.  If  the  Master  be  the 
centre  of  his  circle,  and  all  his  energies  are  centred 
upon  serving  Him,  he  has  no  time  for  depression,  nor 
has  he  the  slightest  inclination  towards  it.  He  is  far 
too  eagerly  wishing  for  work  that  he  can  do.  His  atti- 
tude should  be  that  indicated  by  our  President  in  her 
Autobiography — that  when  a  man  sees  a  piece  of  work 
waiting  to  be  done  he  should  say,  not  as  the  ordinary 
man  usually  does :  "Yes,  it  would  be  a  good  thing,  and 
somebody  ought  to  do  it.  But  why  should  I?" — but 
rather  he  should  say:  "Somebody  ought  to  do  this. 
Why  should  it  not  be  I?" 

As  he  evolves  his  circle  will  widen,  and  in  the  end 
there  will  come  a  time  when  his  circle  will  be  infinite 
in  extent,  and  then  in  a  sense  he  himself  will  again  be 
its  centre,  because  he  has  identified  himself  with  the 
Logos,  who  is  the  centre  of  all  possible  circles,  since 


196  THE  INNER  LIFE 

every  point  is  equally  the  centre  of  a  circle  whose 
radius  is  infinite. 


Our  Duty  to  Animals 

While  you  are  trying  to  do  your  best  for  all  those 
around  you,  do  not  forget  that  you  also  have  a  duty 
towards  forms  of  life  lower  than  the  human.  In  order 
that  you  may  be  able  to  do  that,  try  to  understand  your 
lower  brothers,  try  to  understand  the  animals,  just  as 
you  try  to  understand  on  a  higher  level  the  children 
with  whom  you  have  to  deal.  Just  as  you  learn,  if  you 
want  to  help  a  child,  to  look  at  things  from  the  child's 
point  of  view,  so,  if  you  want  to  help  the  animal  evolu- 
tion, try  to  see  what  is  the  animal's  point  of  view.  In 
all  cases  and  with  all  forms  of  life  our  business  is  to 
love  and  to  help,  and  to  try  to  bring  nearer  the  golden 
age  when  all  shall  understand  one  another  and  all  shall 
co-operate  in  the  glorious  work  that  is  to  come. 

There  is  no  reason  why  our  domestic  animals  should 
not  be  trained  to  help  man,  and  to  work  in  his  service, 
so  long  as  the  work  is  not  painful  or  excessive.  But 
all  the  creatures  around  us  should  be  trained  in  the  way 
best  for  themselves;  that  is  to  say,  we  should  always 
remember  that  their  evolution  is  the  object  of  the  di- 
vine Will.  So  that  while  we  should  surely  teach  our 
animals  all  that  we  can,  because  that  developes  their 
intelligence,  we  must  take  care  that  we  instil  into  them 
good  qualities  and  not  evil.  We  have  various  creatures 
brought  among  us.  We  have  the  dog,  the  cat,  the  horse 
and  other  originally  wild  animals  given  into  our  care — 
brought  to  us  for  affection  and  help.  Why?  That  we 
may  train  them  out  of  their  ferocity,  and  into  a  higher 
and  more  intelligent  state  of  life — that  we  may  evoke 
in  them  devotion,  affection  and  intellect. 


OUR  DUTY  TO  ANIMALS  197 

But  we  must  take  good  care  that  we  help,  not  hinder ; 
we  must  see  that  we  do  not  increase  in  our  animal 
the  ferocious  qualities  which  it  is  the  business  of  his 
evolution  to  get  rid  of.  For  example,  a  man  who  trains 
a  dog  to  hunt  and  kill  is  intensifying  within  him  the 
very  instincts  which  must  be  eliminated  if  the  animal 
is  to  evolve,  and  in  this  way  he  is  degrading  a  creature 
given  into  his  charge  instead  of  helping  him  on  his 
way,  even  though  at  the  same  time  he  may  be  develop- 
ing the  animal's  intelligence ;  and  thus,  though  he  may 
do  a  little  good,  he  is  at  the  same  time  doing  a  great  deal 
of  harm  which  far  more  than  counterbalances  it.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  a  man  who  trains  his  dog  to  be 
ferocious  in  order  that  he  may  be  an  efficient  protector 
of  his  property. 

A  man  who  treats  an  animal  harshly  or  cruelly  may 
possibly  be  evolving  his  intellect,  since  the  animal  may 
learn  to  think  more  keenly  in  order  to  see  how  to  avoid 
the  cruelty.  But  along  with  whatever  evolution  may 
be  gained  in  this  way,  there  is  also  the  development 
of  the  exceedingly  undesirable  qualities  of  fear  and 
hatred.  Thus  when,  later  on,  that  animal  wave  of  life 
goes  up  into  humanity,  we  shall  have  a  humanity  start- 
ing terribly  handicapped — starting  with  these  awful 
qualities  of  fear  and  hatred  ingrained  in  it,  instead  of 
a  humanity  all  aspiring,  devotional,  loving  and  gentle, 
such  as  we  might  have  had  if  the  men  to  whom  the 
animal  part  of  that  evolution  was  committed  had  done 
their  duty. 

We  have  also  our  duty  towards  other  and  even  lower 
forms  of  life  than  that.  There  is  the  elemental  essence, 
which  is  surrounding  us  everywhere;  that  elemental 
essence  progresses  by  means  of  our  thought,  and  of  the 
action  which  we  produce  upon  it  by  our  thoughts,  pas- 
sions, emotions  and  feelings.    We  need  not  trouble  our- 


198  THE  INNER  LIFE 

selves  especially  about  that,  because  if  we  carry  out 
our  higher  ideals,  if  we  try  to  see  to  it  that  all  our 
thought  and  all  our  emotion  shall  be  of  the  highest  pos- 
sible type,  then  that  also  will,  at  the  same  time  and 
without  further  difficulty,  be  the  discharging  of  our 
duty  towards  the  elemental  essences  which  are  influ- 
enced by  our  thought;  they  will  be  raised  and  not  de- 
pressed ;  the  higher  qualities  which  we  alone  can  reach 
will  be  set  in  motion,  vivified  and  helped  at  their  re- 
spective levels. 

All  through  evolution  the  assistance  of  the  higher  is 
expected  in  the  development  of  the  lower,  and  it  is  not 
only  by  individualizing  them  that  man  has  helped  the 
members  of  the  animal  kingdom.  In  Atlantean  days 
the  very  formation  of  their  species  was  largely  given 
over  into  his  hands,  and  it  is  because  he  failed  to  do  his 
duty  properly  that  many  things  turned  out  rather  dif- 
ferently from  what  was  originally  intended.  His  mis- 
takes are  largely  responsible  for  the  existence  of 
carnivorous  creatures  which  live  only  to  destroy  one 
another.  Not  that  he  was  responsible  for  all  carnivo- 
rous creatures;  there  were  such  among  the  gigantic 
reptiles  of  the  Lemurian  period,  and  man  was  not  in 
any  way  directly  engaged  in  their  evolution ;  but  it  was 
in  part  his  work  to  assist  in  the  development  from  those 
reptile  forms  of  the  mammalia  which  play  so  promi- 
nent a  part  in  the  world  now.  Here  was  his  oppor- 
tunity to  improve  the  breeds  and  to  curb  the  undesir- 
able qualities  of  the  creatures  that  came  under  his 
hands;  and  it  is  because  he  failed  to  do  all  that  he 
might  have  done  in  this  direction  that  he  is  to  some 
extent  responsible  for  much  that  has  since  gone  wrong 
in  the  world.  If  he  had  done  all  his  duty  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  we  might  have  had  no  carnivorous 
mammals. 


SYMPATHY  199 

Mankind  has  for  so  long  treated  animals  cruelly  that 
the  whole  animal  world  has  a  general  feeling  of  fear 
and  enmity  towards  men.  Men  have  generated  in  this 
way  an  awful  karma,  which  comes  back  upon  them  in 
terrible  suffering,  in  various  forms  of  disease  and  of 
insanity.  Yet,  even  after  all  this  bad  behaviour  on  the 
part  of  man,  few  animals  will  harm  him  if  left  alone. 
A  serpent,  for  example,  will  not  usually  do  any  injury 
to  a  human  being,  unless  he  is  first  hurt  or  frightened ; 
and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  nearly  all  wild  animals, 
except  the  very  few  who  may  regard  man  as  food,  and 
even  they  usually  will  not  touch  man  if  they  can  get 
anything  else.  Except  when  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
in  self-defence  or  in  defence  of  another  the  destruction 
of  any  form  of  life  ought  always  to  be  avoided,  as  it 
tends  to  retard  nature's  work.  That  is  one  of  the  rea- 
sons why  all  consistent  Theosophists  refuse  to  share 
the  sin  of  slaughter  by  eating  meat  or  fish,  or  by  wear- 
ing such  things  as  are  obtained  only  by  the  slaughter 
of  animals,  like  sealskin  or  the  feathers  of  birds.  Silk 
used  to  be  obtained  by  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  silk- 
worms, but  I  hear  that  there  is  now  a  new  way  of  ob- 
taining it  without  destroying  the  worm. 


Sympathy 

Never  set  yourself  against  the  law  of  nature.  Lately, 
man  has  gone  astray  from  nature  very  much,  and  ma- 
terialism has  become  widely  spread.  Many  scientific 
men  who  know  a  great  deal  more  about  nature  are  very 
much  less  in  sympathy  with  her  than  were  their  less 
instructed  forefathers.  In  the  useful,  and  indeed  nec- 
essary, study  of  the  exterior  many  have  forgotten  the 


200  THE  INNER  LIFE 

interior;  but  men  will  pass  through  this  intermediate 
stage  of  misunderstanding  and  come  back  into  sym- 
pathy. The  older  people,  who  had  a  closer  kinship  with 
nature,  carried  on  little  of  detailed  examination,  which 
would  have  seemed  irreverent  to  them.  Because  we 
have  become  irreverent,  have  lost  the  living  feeling,  we 
pry  remorselessly.  We  must  take  care  not  to  lose  the 
precision  that  we  have  gained  by  this  intermediate 
stage,  but  must  recover  the  sympathy.  By  sympathy 
one  may  find  out  a  great  deal  which  science  alone  can 
never  discover.  In  the  teaching  of  children,  we  need 
to  make  them  feel  that  we  understand  them,  even 
though  in  doing  so  we  may  sacrifice  some  scholastic  ad- 
vantages. The  average  child  regards  grown-up  people 
as  foreign  entities,  strange  arbitrary  beings. 

All  this  is  true  also  in  connection  with  our  studies  of 
nature.  The  nature-spirits  are  afraid  of  us,  if  we  study 
them  too  scientifically ;  we  must  go  with  them  into  their 
life,  and  then  they  will  be  interested  in  the  life  of  hu- 
manity also.  In  their  blind  way,  flowers  and  other 
things  feel  joy  and  friendliness.  Emerson  said  that 
it  appeared  to  him  that  when  he  returned  home,  the 
trees  in  his  garden  felt  glad  to  see  or  feel  him  again, 
and  no  doubt  it  was  quite  true.  The  trees  and  animals 
do  know  the  people  who  love  them.  In  India  people 
speak  of  the  "lucky  hand"  in  planting,  meaning  that 
things  will  grow  for  some  people,  but  not  for  others. 
One  must  be  in  sympathy  with  the  purpose  of  the 
Logos.  If  we  are  actively  helping  in  the  progress  of 
all,  we  are  living  in  His  will,  which  penetrates  nature, 
and  this  is  felt  by  nature  at  once ;  but  if  we  put  our- 
selves in  opposition  to  evolution,  nature  shrinks  back 
from  us  like  a  sensitive  child. 


the  fear  of  death  201 

Our  Attitude  Towards  Children 

What  is  your  attitude  towards  your  children?  Re- 
member that  these  are  egos,  sparks  of  the  divine  life. 
They  have  been  entrusted  to  you,  not  that  you  may 
domineer  over  them  and  brutally  ill-treat  them,  and 
use  them  for  your  own  profit  and  advantage,  but  that 
you  may  love  them  and  help  them  in  order  that  they 
may  be  expressions  of  that  divine  life.  What  an  out- 
pouring of  love  then  you  ought  to  feel !  How  beyond 
all  words  your  patience  and  compassion  should  be! 
How  deeply  you  should  feel  the  honour  of  being  trusted 
to  serve  them  in  this  way !  Remember  always  that  you 
are  not  the  older  and  they  the  younger,  but  that  as  souls 
you  are  all  about  the  same  age,  and  therefore  your  at- 
titude must  not  be  that  of  a  selfish  and  cruel  dictator, 
but  of  a  helpful  friend.  You  do  not  regard  your  friend 
differently  when  he  puts  on  a  new  coat;  remember 
therefore  that  when  you  meet  a  child  you  are  meeting 
a  soul  wearing  a  new  coat,  and  you  should  try  by  per- 
fect kindness  and  love  to  draw  out  the  best  that  is  in  it, 
and  to  help  it  to  fit  on  its  new  coat.  Remember  always 
that  true  good  means  good  for  all,  and  that  good  is 
never  gained  at  the  cost  of  suffering  to  others.  That 
which  is  so  gained  is  not  really  good  at  all. 


The  Fear  of  Death 

The  fear  of  death  is  a  stern  reality  in  the  minds  of 
many  people.  A  far  larger  number  suffer  from  it  than 
one  would  suppose,  and  still  more  from  the  fear  of  what 
may  happen  to  us  after  death.  Naturally  this  is  espe- 
cially to  be  found  among  people  who  have  ideas  of  hell, 
and  of  probable  punishment  if  they  do  not  believe  this 


202  THE  INNER  LIFE 

or  that.  It  is  a  gross  and  degraded  form  of  supersti- 
tion, but  still  the  suffering  is  real,  and  what  is  even 
worse  is  the  fear  as  to  the  fate  of  others  after  death. 
Many  a  mother's  whole  life  is  embittered  by  doubts  and 
fears  as  to  what  may  happen  to  her  son.  He  goes  far 
away  from  her,  perhaps;  he  falls  into  the  ordinary 
habits  of  men  of  the  world,  and  does  many  things  con- 
trary to  the  narrow  religious  teaching  in  which  she  has 
been  brought  up,  and  so  she  thinks  that  he  must  suffer 
eternal  torture.  While  it  is  true  that  there  is  no  eter- 
nal hell  for  him,  there  is  certainly  much  real  earthly 
suffering  for  her. 

But  we  know  the  law  of  karma,  and  realize  that  the 
states  after  death  are  simply  a  continuation  of  the  life 
which  we  are  now  living,  although  on  a  higher  plane 
and  without  a  physical  body ;  and  when  in  addition  we 
learn  that  what  we  commonly  call  life  is  only  one  day 
in  the  real  and  greater  life,  then  all  these  things  assume 
quite  a  different  perspective.  We  know  then  that 
progress  is  absolutely  certain.  A  man  may  stumble, 
he  may  set  himself  against  the  forces  of  progress,  but 
he  will  be  carried  on  by  them  in  spite  of  himself,  though 
when  he  resists  there  will  be  much  of  bruising  and 
trouble  for  him.  We  see  at  once  that  this  knowledge 
eliminates  fear. 

The  so-called  loss  of  a  loved  one  by  death  is  really 
only  a  temporary  absence,  and  not  even  that  as  soon  as 
a  man  developes  the  power  to  see  on  the  higher  planes. 
Those  whom  we  think  we  have  lost  are  with  us  still, 
even  though  with  our  physical  eyes  we  cannot  see  them ; 
and  we  should  never  forget  that,  although  we  may 
sometimes  be  under  the  delusion  that  we  have  lost  them, 
they  are  not  in  the  least  under  the  delusion  that  they 
have  lost  us,  because  they  can  still  see  our  astral  bodies, 
and  as  soon  as  we  leave  the  physical  vehicle  in  sleep  we 


CO-OPERATION  203 

are  with  them  and  can  communicate  with  them  exactly 
as  when  they  were  on  the  physical  plane. 

We  need  not  worry  ourselves  about  saving  our  souls ; 
rather  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  Theosophical  writer  once 
said,  we  may  not  be  entirely  beyond  the  hope  that  some 
day  our  souls  may  save  us.  There  is  no  soul  to  be  saved 
in  the  ordinary  sense  in  which  the  words  are  used,  be- 
cause we  ourselves  are  the  souls;  and  furthermore 
there  is  nothing  to  be  saved  from  except  our  own  error 
and  ignorance.  The  body  is  nothing  but  a  vestment, 
and  when  it  is  worn  out  we  cast  it  aside. 


Co-Operation 

It  is  part  of  the  scheme  of  the  Logos  that  at  a  certain 
stage  in  its  evolution  humanity  must  begin  to  guide 
itself.  Therefore  all  the  future  Buddhas,  Manus  and 
Adepts  will  be  members  of  our  own  humanity,  the 
Lords  from  Venus  having  gone  on  to  other  worlds. 
Therefore  also  the  Logos  actually  counts  upon  us  all, 
upon  you  and  upon  me.  We  may  have  ninety-nine 
faults  and  only  one  virtue,  but  if  that  one  virtue  is 
needed  in  the  Theosophical  work  (and  what  virtue  is 
not  needed?)  we  shall  surely  have  the  opportunity  to 
use  it. 

We  should  then  value  our  co-workers  for  what  they 
can  do,  and  not  be  constantly  blaming  them  for  what 
they  cannot  do.  Many  people  have  earned  the  right  to 
do  some  particular  kind  of  work,  notwithstanding  that 
their  defects  may  be  greater  than  their  virtues.  Peo- 
ple often  make  a  sad  mistake  in  comparing  their  work 
with  that  of  others,  and  wishing  that  they  had  the 
same  opportunities.     The  truth  is  that  each  one  has 


204  THE  INNER  LIFE 

his  own  gifts  and  his  own  powers,  and  it  is  not  expected 
of  any  man  that  he  should  do  as  much  as  some  other 
man,  but  only  that  he  should  do  his  best — just  his  own 
best. 

The  Master  once  said  that  in  reality  there  are  only 
two  classes  of  men — those  who  know  and  those  who  do 
not  know.  Those  who  know  are  they  that  have  seen  the 
light  and  have  turned  towards  it,  through  whatever 
religion  they  have  come,  at  however  great  a  distance 
from  the  light  they  may  as  yet  find  themselves.  Many 
of  them  may  be  suffering  much  in  their  struggle  to- 
wards that  light,  but  at  least  they  have  hope  before 
them,  and  while  we  sympathize  deeply  with  them  and 
strive  to  help  them  we  yet  realize  that  they  are  by  no 
means  in  the  worst  case.  The  people  really  to  be 
pitied  are  those  who  are  quite  indifferent  to  all  higher 
thought — those  who  do  not  struggle  because  they  do 
not  care,  or  think,  or  know  that  there  is  anything  for 
which  to  strive.  These  are  they  in  truth  who  constitute 
"the  great  orphan  humanity." 


A  Day  of  Life 

It  is  not  wise  to  specialize  beyond  a  certain  point, 
because  one  can  never  really  get  to  the  end  of  any  sub- 
ject, and  it  tends  more  and  more  to  narrow  the  mind 
and  the  outlook,  to  produce  a  one-sided  and  distorted 
development,  and  to  cause  one  to  view  everything  out 
of  its  due  proportion.  We  are  in  the  habit  of  thinking 
of  a  life-time  as  a  long  period,  but  really  it  is  only  a 
day  in  the  greater  life.  You  cannot  finish  a  really  great 
piece  of  work  in  one  day ;  it  may  need  many  days,  and 
the  work  of  one  particular  day  may  at  the  time  show 


A  DAY  OF  LIFE  205 

no  appreciable  result;  but  nevertheless  every  day's 
work  is  necessary  to  the  completion  of  the  great  task, 
and  if  a  man  should  idle  day  after  day  because  the  com- 
pletion of  the  work  seems  so  far  off  he  would  certainly 
not  succeed  in  getting  it  done. 

There  are  many  to  whom  Theosophy  comes  late  in 
life,  who  feel  themselves  somewhat  discouraged  by  the 
outlook,  thinking  they  aro  too  old  now  to  take  them- 
selves in  hand  seriously  or  to  do  any  valuable  work, 
that  the  best  that  they  can  do  now  is  to  go  quietly  on  to 
the  end  of  this  incarnation  in  the  hope  that  they  may 
have  a  better  opportunity  in  the  next. 

This  is  a  sad  mistake,  and  that  for  various  reasons. 
You  do  not  know  what  kind  of  incarnation  karma  is 
preparing  for  you  next  time  you  return  to  earth.  You 
do  not  know  whether  by  any  previous  action  you  have 
deserved  the  opportuntity  of  being  born  into  Theosoph- 
ical  surroundings.  In  any  case  the  most  likely  way  to 
secure  such  a  birth  is  to  make  use  of  the  opportunity 
which  has  come  to  you  now,  for,  of  all  that  we  have 
learned  about  the  working  of  this  great  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  this  one  fact  stands  out  most  clearly — that 
the  result  of  taking  an  opportunity  is  invariably  that 
another  and  wider  opportunity  is  given.  If  therefore 
you  neglect  the  opportunity  put  before  you  by  your  en- 
counter with  Theosophy  now,  it  is  possible  that  in  the 
next  incarnation  the  chance  may  not  come  to  you  again. 

If  a  man  sets  to  work  earnestly  and  permeates  his 
spirit  as  thoroughly  as  possible  with  Theosophical  ideas, 
that  will  build  them  well  into  the  ego,  and  will  give  him 
so  great  an  attraction  towards  them  that  he  is  certain, 
even  though  he  may  not  remember  them  in  detail,  to 
seek  for  them  instinctively,  and  to  recognize  them,  in 
his  next  birth.  Every  man  therefore  should  begin 
Theosophical  work  just  as  soon  as  he  hears  of  it,  be- 


206  THE  INNER  LIFE 

cause  whatever  of  it  he  contrives  to  achieve,  however 
little  it  may  be,  will  be  just  so  much  to  the  good,  and 
he  will  begin  to-morrow  where  he  has  left  off  this  time. 
Also  by  trying  to  do  what  he  can  with  such  vehicles  as 
he  has,  obstinate  and  unresponsive  though  they  may 
prove  through  lack  of  pliability,  he  will  assuredly  do 
much  to  earn  for  himself  more  pliable  vehicles  for  next 
time.  So  no  effort  is  lost,  and  it  is  never  too  late  in 
any  given  life  to  enter  upon  the  long,  long  upward  path, 
and  to  make  a  commencement  in  the  glorious  work  of 
helping  others. 

With  an  eternal  life  before  us  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  worry  because  the  present  day  is  drawing  near  its 
evening,  or  in  despair  to  neglect  the  preparations  for 
the  coming  day.  Light  on  the  Path  says:  "Kill  out 
desire  of  life."  This  is  often  misunderstood,  but  its 
meaning  should  be  plain.  You  cannot  lose  your  life; 
\vhy  then  should  you  desire  it?  It  cannot  possibly  be 
taken  from  you.  At  the  same  time  the  quotation  means 
that  you  should  kill  out  desire  for  particular  bodily 
conditions. 


Meditation 

I  think  that  our  members  sometimes  mistake  with 
regard  to  meditation,  because  they  have  not  thoroughly 
understood  the  exact  way  in  which  it  works.  They 
sometimes  think  that  because  they  do  not  feel  happy 
and  uplifted  after  a  meditation  it  is  therefore  a  failure 
and  entirely  useless,  or  they  find  themselves  dull  and 
heavy  and  incapable  of  meditation.  There  seems  no 
reality  in  anything  for  them,  no  certainty  about  any- 
thing, and  they  feel  that  they  are  making  no  progress. 
They  suppose  that  this  must  be  somehow  their  own 
fault  and  they  reproach  themselves  for  it;  but  they 


MEDITATION  207 

often  ask  what  they  can  do  to  improve  matters  and  to 
restore  the  joy  they  used  to  feel. 

Now  the  fact  is  that  that  experience  in  regard  to 
meditation  is  that  of  all  seekers  after  the  spiritual  life ; 
you  will  find  that  the  Christian  saints  constantly  speak 
of  their  sufferings  at  periods  of  what  they  call  "spirit- 
ual dryness,"  when  nothing  seems  any  use  and  they  feel 
as  though  they  had  lost  sight  of  God  altogether.  Im- 
agine that  I  am  sitting  looking  through  a  wide-open 
window  upon  a  beautiful  hill-side,  but  the  sky  is  dull 
grey,  heavy  with  a  vast  pall  of  cloud  probably  miles  in 
thickness.  I  have  not  seen  the  sun  for  three  days.  I 
cannot  feel  his  rays,  but  I  know  he  is  there,  and  I  know 
that  some  day  these  clouds  will  roll  away  as  others 
have  done,  and  I  shall  see  him  again.  What  is  neces- 
sary for  the  life  of  the  world  is  that  he  should  be  there, 
not  that  I  should  see  him;  it  is  far  pleasanter  to  see 
him  and  to  feel  the  warmth  of  his  rays,  but  it  is  not  a 
necessity  of  life.  I  know  just  exactly  how  these  people 
feel,  and  it  is  cold  comfort  to  be  told  that  our  feelings 
do  not  matter,  even  though  there  is  a  very  real  sense  in 
which  it  is  true. 

I  think  it  is  helpful  to  remember  that  our  meditation 
has  several  objects — for  example : 

1.  To  ensure  that,  however  deeply  we  may  be  im- 
mersed in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  we  shall  devote  at 
least  some  time  each  day  to  the  thought  of  a  high  ideal. 

2.  To  draw  us  nearer  to  the  Master  and  to  the 
Logos,  so  that  from  Them  strength  may  be  poured  upon 
us  and  through  us  to  benefit  the  world. 

3.  To  train  our  higher  bodies,  so  that  they  may 
have  constant  practice  in  responding  to  the  highest 
vibrations — to  do  the  same  thing  for  them  that  a  care- 
fully arranged  system  of  gymnastics  or  regular  exer- 
cises does  for  the  physical  body. 


208  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Now  you  will  observe  that  all  these  objects  are  at- 
tained just  the  same  whether  we  feel  happy  or  not.  A 
mistake  that  many  people  make  is  to  suppose  that  a 
meditation  which  is  unsatisfactory  to  them  is  therefore 
ineffectual.  It  is  just  like  a  little  child  performing  daily 
her  hour  of  practice  upon  the  piano.  Sometimes  per- 
haps she  partially  enjoys  it,  but  very  often  it  is  a  weari- 
ness to  her,  and  her  only  thought  is  to  finish  it  as  quick- 
ly as  possible.  She  does  not  know,  but  we  do,  that  every 
such  hour  is  accustoming  her  fingers  to  the  instrument, 
and  is  bringing  nearer  and  nearer  the  time  when  she 
will  derive  from  her  music  an  enjoyment  of  which  now 
she  does  not  even  dream.  You  will  observe  that  this 
object  is  being  attained  just  as  much  by  the  unpleasant 
and  unsatisfactory  hour  of  practice  as  by  that  which 
she  enjoys.  So  in  the  work  of  our  meditation  some- 
times we  feel  happy  and  uplifted,  and  sometimes  not; 
but  in  both  cases  alike  it  has  been  acting  for  our  higher 
bodies  as  do  the  exercises  of  physical  culture  or  train- 
ing for  our  physical  body.  It  is  pleasanter  when  you 
have  what  you  call  a  "good"  meditation ;  but  the  only 
difference  between  what  seems  a  good  one  and  a  bad 
one  lies  in  its  effect  upon  the  feelings,  and  not  in  the 
real  work  which  it  does  towards  our  evolution. 

The  reason  of  the  temporary  dullness  is  not  always 
in  ourselves — or  rather,  it  is  not  always  attributable  to 
anything  that  can  reasonably  be  called  our  fault.  Often 
it  is  purely  physical,  resulting  from  over-fatigue  or  a 
nervous  strain ;  often  it  is  due  to  surrounding  astral  or 
mental  influences.  Of  course  it  is  our  karma  to  be 
subjected  to  these,  and  so  in  that  more  remote  way  we 
are  responsible;  but  we  must  just  do  the  best  we  can 
with  them,  and  there  is  no  need  for  us  to  be  despondent, 
or  to  waste  our  time  in  reproaching  ourselves. 

Another  reason  also  may  be  that  at  certain  times  the 


MEDITATION  209 

planetary  influences  are  more  favourable  for  medita- 
tion than  at  others.  I  know  nothing  of  this  myself, 
for  I  have  never  considered  the  planetary  influences  in 
these  matters,  but  have  always  forced  my  way  to  what 
I  desired ;  but  I  have  heard  a  friend  say  that  an  astrol- 
oger told  him  that  on  certain  occasions  when  Jupiter 
had  certain  relations  with  the  moon  this  had  the  effect 
of  expanding  the  etheric  atmosphere  and  making  medi- 
tation easier,  or  at  least  making  it  appear  more  success- 
ful. The  astrologer  gave  him  a  list,  which  he  consulted 
after  taking  notes  of  the  conditions  of  his  meditations 
daily  for  three  or  four  weeks,  when  he  found  that  the 
results  exactly  agreed  with  the  influences  which  were 
said  to  be  acting.  Certain  aspects  with  Saturn,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  said  to  congest  the  etheric  atmos- 
phere, making  the  work  of  meditation  difficult,  and  this 
also  was  verified  in  the  same  way. 

The  highest  thought  that  we  can  have  is  that  of  the 
supreme  Lord  of  all,  but  of  course  we  must  not  suppose 
that  our  thought  changes  in  the  least  the  attitude  of  the 
Supreme  towards  us.  We  who  are  students  ought  to 
be  far  beyond  the  stage  at  which  a  man  thinks  that  he 
can  produce  change  in  the  Supreme — a  thought  which 
belongs  only  to  the  ignorant  and  unphilosophical  among 
the  Christians.  We  ourselves  however  are  certainly 
affected  by  opening  ourselves  to  Him.  If  you  open 
the  window  of  your  room  to  the  sun,  the  condition  of 
your  room  is  much  changed  by  the  power  of  the  sun, 
but  the  sun  is  in  no  way  changed  by  your  opening  the 
window.    Open  the  windows  of  your  soul  to  God. 

During  meditation  one  may  try  to  think  of  the  Su- 
preme Self  in  everything  and  everything  in  it.  Try  to 
understand  how  the  Self  is  endeavouring  to  express 
itself  through  the  form.  One  method  of  practice  for 
this  is  to  try  to  identify  your  consciousness  with  that 


210  THE  INNER  LIFE 

of  various  creatures,  such  as  a  fly,  an  ant,  or  a  tree. 
Try  to  see  and  feel  things  as  they  see  and  feel  them,  un- 
til as  you  pass  inwards  all  consciousness  of  the  tree  or 
the  insect  falls  away,  and  the  life  of  the  Logos  appears. 
We  are  very  much  more  than  the  tree  or  the  ant ;  there- 
fore there  is  no  danger  of  our  being  unable  to  with- 
draw our  consciousness  when  the  experiment  is  fin- 
ished. We  do  not  after  all  imprison  it  in  the  form  of 
the  tree  or  the  ant ;  we  expand  it  to  take  in  the  life  in 
every  form.  The  man  who  does  this  for  the  first  time 
is  usually  surprised  when  he  realizes  the  limitations 
under  which  animals  act.  He  had  thought  an  animal 
acted  in  a  certain  way  for  what  seemed  quite  obvious 
reasons,  but  when  he  really  enters  into  the  animal  he 
finds  that  its  motives  and  intentions  are  wholly  differ- 
ent. The  disciple  has  to  go  through  this  process  also 
with  lower  classes  of  human  beings,  because  without 
it  he  could  not  perfectly  help  them. 

This  enables  us  to  get  down  to  the  bed-rock  of 
the  Self,  and  clears  away  the  darkness  and  loneli- 
ness which  often  comes  over  us  at  one  stage  of 
our  progress.  When  we  know  quite  certainly  that 
we  are  part  of  a  whole  we  do  not  so  much  mind 
where  this  particular  fragment  of  it  may  be,  or 
through  what  experiences  it  may  be  passing.  What- 
ever loneliness  we  may  have,  we  feel,  we  know,  that 
we  are  never  alone ;  the  Master  is  always  there  waiting 
to  help  where  help  is  possible.  We  must  give  up  the 
clinging  to  the  particular  forms,  and  have  no  motive 
but  to  do  the  will  of  the  Logos.  We  must  never  allow 
the  feeling  of  loneliness  to  make  us  forget  the  Master 
or  lose  faith  in  Him,  for  no  progress  is  possible  unless 
we  have  the  fullest  confidence  in  the  Master  whom  we 
choose  to  serve.  If  we  have  only  a  half-hearted  ques- 
tioning faith  in  Him  we  cannot  progress.     We  need 


MEDITATION  211 

not  make  the  choice  of  a  Master  unless  we  will;  but 
having  made  it  we  must  have  faith  in  the  Teacher  and 
His  message. 

In  controlling  the  mind  first  turn  away  the  senses 
from  outward  sounds  and  sights,  and  become  insensi- 
tive to  the  waves  of  thought  and  emotion  from  others. 
That  is  comparatively  easy,  but  the  next  stage  is  very 
difficult,  for  when  this  is  done  there  come  up  from 
within  disturbances  which  spring  from  the  uncon- 
trolled activity  of  the  mind.  The  meditation  of  many 
of  our  beginners  consists  mostly  of  a  continuous  strug- 
gle to  come  back  to  the  point.  Heie  comes  in  the  advice 
given  in  The  Voice  of  Silence.  "The  mind  is  the  slayer 
of  the  real ;  let  the  disciple  slay  the  slayer."  You  must 
not  of  course  destroy  your  mind,  for  you  cannot  get 
along  without  it,  but  you  must  dominate  it ;  it  is  yours, 
not  you.  The  best  way  to  overcome  its  wandering  is  to 
use  the  will.  It  is  often  suggested  that  the  pupil  should 
help  himself  by  making  a  shell  round  him ;  but  after  all 
shells  are  but  crutches.  Develope  will,  and  you  will  be 
able  to  dispense  with  them.  The  astral  body  tries  to 
impose  itself  upon  you  in  the  same  way,  and  to  make 
you  believe  that  its  desires  are  yours ;  but  with  that  also 
we  must  deal  in  a  precisely  similar  manner. 

There  is  no  limit  to  the  degree  to  which  will  may  be 
developed.  There  are  decided  limitations  to  the  extent 
to  which  the  strength  of  the  physical  body  can  be  in- 
creased, but  there  seem  to  be  no  limitations  in  the  case 
of  the  will.  Fortunately  we  can  train  it  in  the  ordinary 
small  things  of  daily  life  every  day  and  all  day  long, 
and  we  can  have  no  better  practice  than  this.  It  is 
much  easier  for  a  man  to  screw  up  his  courage  to  face 
a  dramatic  martyrdom  before  a  crowd  of  people  than 
to  go  on  doing  the  tiresome  daily  duty  with  tiresome 
people  day  after  day  and  year  after  year.    This  latter 


212  THE  INNER  LIFE 

needs  much  more  will-power  than  the  former.  Be 
careful  however  that  you  do  not  make  others  suffer  in 
your  efforts  to  develope  your  own  will.  Sometimes 
people  have  shown  will-power  by  leaving  home  and 
friends  and  going  out  to  face  all  kinds  of  difficulties 
and  privations  in  order  to  do  Theosophical  work.  That 
is  quite  right  if  a  man  is  absolutely  free  to  do  it ;  but  a 
man  who  left  his  wife  and  family  for  that  purpose,  or 
an  only  son  who  left  parents  that  were  dependent  upon 
him,  would  evidently  be  neglecting  his  duty  in  a  way 
which  no  one  has  a  right  to  do,  even  for  the  sake  of  the 
noblest  motives. 

As  a  result  of  determined  meditation  we  begin  to 
build  into  our  bodies  the  higher  kinds  of  matter.  At 
this  stage  we  often  feel  grand  emotions,  coming  from 
the  buddhic  level  and  reflected  in  the  astral  body,  and 
under  their  influence  we  may  do  fine  work  and  show 
great  self-sacrifice.  But  then  is  needed  the  develop- 
ment of  the  mental  and  causal  bodies  in  order  to  steady 
and  balance  us ;  otherwise  the  grand  emotions  that  have 
swayed  us  in  the  right  direction  may  very  readily  be- 
come a  little  twisted  and  sway  us  along  some  other  and 
less  desirable  lines.  With  feeling  alone  we  never  ob- 
tain perfect  balance  or  steadiness.  It  is  well  that  the 
high  feelings  should  come,  and  the  more  powerfully 
they  come  the  better,  but  that  is  not  enough;  wisdom 
and  steadiness  must  also  be  acquired  because  we  need 
directing  power  as  well  as  motive  force.  The  very 
meaning  of  buddhic  is  wisdom,  and  when  that  comes  it 
swallows  up  all  else. 

Illumination  may  mean  three  quite  different  things. 
First,  a  man,  by  setting  himself  to  think  intensely  and 
very  carefully  over  a  subject  may  arrive  at  some  con- 
clusion with  respect  to  it.  Secondly,  he  may  hope  to 
obtain  some  illumination  from  his  higher  self — to  dis- 


MEDITATION  213 

cover  what  the  ego  really  thinks  on  its  own  plane  about 
the  matter  in  question.  Thirdly,  a  highly  developed 
man  may  come  into  touch  with  Masters  or  devas.  It 
is  only  in  the  first  case  that  his  conclusions  would  be 
likely  to  be  vitiated  by  his  own  thought-forms.  The 
higher  self  would  be  able  to  transcend  these,  and  so 
would  a  Master  or  a  deva. 

All  these  would  have  no  difficulty  in  presenting 
things  as  they  really  are ;  but  we  must  remember  that 
we  have  not  only  to  absorb  the  information,  but  also  to 
bring  it  down  into  the  physical  brain,  and  as  soon  as  it 
reaches  that  brain  it  will  begin  to  be  coloured  by  prej- 
udices. What  we  can  do  in  meditation  depends  upon 
what  we  are  doing  all  day  long.  If  we  have  built  up 
prejudices  in  ordinary  life  we  cannot  escape  from  them 
during  the  time  of  meditation ;  but  if  we  patiently  en- 
deavour to  root  out  our  prejudices  and  to  learn  that  the 
ways  of  others  are  just  as  good  as  our  own,  we  are  at 
least  on  our  way  towards  establishing  a  gentle  and  tol- 
erant attitude  which  will  assuredly  extend  itself  to  the 
special  time  of  our  meditation.  It  is  easy  for  us  to  see 
the  disadvantages  of.  any  new  ideas  or  suggestions; 
these  leap  to  the  eyes.  But  look  for  the  good  also,  which 
does  not  always  so  readily  emerge. 

During  meditation  the  ego  regards  the  personality 
much  as  at  any  other  time — he  is  slightly  contemptuous 
usually.  Remember  your  physical  meditation  is  not  for 
the  ego,  but  for  the  training  of  the  various  vehicles  to 
be  a  channel  for  the  ego.  If  the  ego  is  at  all  developed 
he  will  meditate  also  upon  his  own  level ;  but  it  does  not 
follow  that  his  meditation  will  synchronize  with  that 
of  the  personality.  The  force  coming  down  is  always 
that  of  the  ego,  but  only  a  small  part,  giving  a  one- 
sided conception  of  things.  The  yoga  of  a  fairly  well- 
developed  ego  is  to  try  to  raise  his  consciousness  first 


214  THE  INNER  LIFE 

into  the  buddhic  plane  and  then  through  its  various 
stages.  He  does  this  without  reference  to  what  the 
personality  happens  to  be  doing  at  the  time.  Such  an 
ego  would  probably  also  send  down  a  little  of  himself 
at  the  personal  meditation,  though  his  own  meditations 
are  very  different. 

For  the  development  of  the  powers  of  the  soul, 
thought-control  is  an  essential  pre-requisite.  When  the 
thought  is  controlled  and  the  will  is  strong  a  good  deal 
may  be  achieved  in  various  directions.  Much  help  may 
be  given  both  to  the  living  and  to  the  dead,  and  those 
who  are  sick  or  sorrowful  may  be  greatly  helped  and 
strengthened.  It  is  well  for  each  member  to  make  it  a 
daily  practice  to  devote  a  certain  time  to  the  sending 
out  of  such  thoughts  to  people  v/ho  are  personally 
known  to  him — in  addition,  I  mean,  10  the  ordinary 
meditation  which  he  undertakes  for  the  sake  of  his  own 
development.  The  same  thing  can  be  done  to  some  ex- 
tent in  group  meditation;  the  thoughts  of  all  may  be 
concentrated  for  a  few  minutes  upon  some  one  who  is 
known  to  be  in  trouble  or  suffering,  and  a  determined 
effort  made  to  send  strength  and  consolation.  The 
same  power  used  in  a  different  way  will  often  cure 
physical  diseases. 

As  to  the  development  of  astral  sight  and  hearing, 
one  hardly  regards  that  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  rather  as 
a  means  to  an  end.  It  seems  best  to  utilize  to  the  ut- 
most all  the  powers  that  we  already  possess,  and  wait 
for  these  others  to  unfold  themselves  as  the  result  of 
study  and  unselfish  work.  Such  powers  are  undoubt- 
edly a  help,  though  they  may  be  a  danger  if  they  come 
before  the  character  is  fully  developed.  For  any  one 
who  wishes  to  hasten  their  unfoldment  I  should  recom- 
mend the  process  which  I  describe  in  the  last  chapter  of 
The  Other  Side  of  Death. 


MEDITATION  215 

Where  a  house  is  large  enough  to  permit  it,  it  is  a 
good  idea  to  set  apart  a  room  especially  for  meditation. 
I  see  no  harm  in  holding  group-meetings  in  such  a  room 
if  the  group  be  earnest  and  harmonious,  but  not  if  there 
is  to  be  anything  of  the  nature  of  discussion  or  wrang- 
ling. If  you  are  trying  experiments  with  mediums  of 
any  sort  I  should  advise  the  use  of  some  other  room. 
You  ask  whether  you  should  enter  such  a  room  when 
you  feel  worried;  don't  be  worried,  don't  even  admit 
the  possibility  of  being  worried.  I  advise  you  not  to 
make  a  thought-form,  "I  am  worried,  therefore  I  must 
not  enter,"  rather  to  take  exactly  the  opposite  line,  "I 
am  about  to  enter,  therefore  I  am  no  longer  worried." 
You  will  find  that  much  more  effective. 


Jfourilj  £>*rtum 


®If^  ^tglf^r  pian?0 


FOURTH  SECTION 

Nirvana 

IT  has  often  been  said  that  in  the  final  consum- 
mation all  individual  souls  merge  into  the 
Great  Soul,  and  our  students  sometimes 
find  it  difficult  to  reconcile  this  with  other 
statements  which  seem  to  imply  that  the  individuality 
is  maintained,  in  some  form  or  other,  even  up  to  the 
very  greatest  heights.  The  fact  is  that  no  experience 
which  we  can  have,  and  no  ideas  which  we  can  formu- 
late down  here  in  our  physical  brain,  will  at  all  express 
the  glorious  realities  of  nirvana  and  the  planes  beyond 
it.  We  know  so  little  of  that  transcendent  glory,  and 
what  little  we  do  know  can  never  be  put  into  adequate 
words.  Perhaps,  however,  it  is  in  a  certain  sense  some- 
what misleading  to  speak  of  individual  souls  as  merg- 
ing into  the  Great  Soul.  Every  monad  is  fundamen- 
tally a  spark  of  the  divine  triad ;  he  cannot  merge  into 
that  of  which  he  is  already  a  part.  Surely  a  better 
explanation  of  what  happens  would  be  to  say  that  as 
he  evolves  the  spark  develops  into  flame;  he  becomes 
more  and  more  conscious  of  his  unity  with  the  divine, 
and  so  the  Logos  is  able  more  and  more  to  manifest 
Himself  through  him. 

This  much  at  least  I  can  say,  that  up  to  the  highest 
level  of  consciousness  which  any  of  our  students  have 
yet  attained — up  even  to  what  is  commonly  called 
nirvana  itself,  there  is  no  loss  of  individuality,  of  the 
power  to  think,  to  plan  and  to  act.    Long  before  that 

219 


220  THE  INNER  LIFE 

there  is  an  entire  loss  of  the  sense  of  separateness,  but 
that  is  a  very  different  thing.  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  wrote 
of  that  beatific  condition  "the  dewdrop  slips  into  the 
shining  sea."  Those  who  have  passed  through  that 
most  marvelous  of  experiences  know  that,  paradoxical 
as  it  may  seem,  the  sensation  is  exactly  the  reverse,  and 
that  a  far  closer  description  would  be  that  the  ocean 
had  somehow  been  poured  into  the  drop ! 

That  consciousness,  wide  as  the  sea,  with  "its  centre 
everywhere  and  its  circumference  nowhere,"  is  a  great 
and  glorious  fact;  but  when  a  man  attains  it,  it  seems 
to  him  that  his  consciousness  has  widened  to  take  in  all 
that,  not  that  he  is  merged  into  something  else.  And  he 
is  right,  for  that  which  he  had  ignorantly  supposed  to 
be  his  consciousness  was  never  his  at  all,  but  only  the 
shining  of  the  divine  power  and  wisdom  and  love 
through  him,  and  he  is  now  at  last  beginning  to  realize 
that  stupendous  fact.  The  truth  is  that  what  is  com- 
monly understood  by  individuality  is  a  delusion  and  has 
never  existed,  but  all  that  is  best  and  noblest  in  that 
conception  is  maintained  up  to  adeptship  and  far  be- 
yond, even  into  the  realm  of  the  great  Planetary  Spirits, 
for  They  are  assuredly  individuals,  though  mighty  be- 
yond our  feeble  powers  of  conception. 

Even  though  the  attempt  be  foredoomed  to  failure, 
let  me  endeavour  to  give  some  slight  idea  of  an  expe- 
rience which  some  of  us  once  had  in  connection  with 
this  lofty  plane.  Before  we  ourselves  by  our  own  ef- 
forts were  able  to  touch  it,  a  Master,  for  certain  pur- 
poses of  His  own,  enfolded  us  in  His  higher  aura,  and 
enabled  us  through  Him  to  know  something  of  the 
glories  of  nirvana. 

Try  to  imagine  the  whole  universe  filled  with  and 
consisting  of  an  immense  torrent  of  living  light,  and 
in  it  a  vividness  of  life  and  an  intensity  of  bliss  alto- 


NIRVANA  221 

gether  beyond  all  description,  a  hundred  thousand 
times  beyond  the  greatest  bliss  of  heaven.  At  first  we 
feel  nothing  but  the  bliss;  we  see  nothing  but  the  in- 
tensity of  the  light;  but  gradually  we  begin  to  realize 
that  even  in  this  dazzling  brightness  there  are  brighter 
spots — nuclei,  as  it  were — which  are  built  of  the  light 
because  there  is  nothing  but  the  light,  and  yet  through 
them  somehow  the  light  gleams  out  more  brightly,  and 
obtains  a  new  quality  which  enables  it  to  be  perceptible 
upon  other  and  lower  planes,  which  without  this  would 
be  altogether  beneath  the  possibility  of  sensing  its 
effulgence.  And  by  degrees  we  begin  to  realize  that 
these  subsidiary  suns  are  the  great  Ones,  that  these  are 
Planetary  Spirits,  Great  Angels,  Karmic  Deities, 
Buddhas,  Christs  and  Masters,  and  that  through  Them 
the  light  and  the  life  are  flowing  down  to  the  lower 
planes.  Gradually,  little  by  little,  as  we  become  more 
accustomed  to  the  stupendous  reality,  we  begin  to  see 
that,  in  a  far  lower  sense,  even  we  ourselves  are  a 
focus  in  that  cosmic  scheme,  and  that  through  us  also, 
at  our  much  lower  level,  the  light  and  the  life  are  flow- 
ing to  those  who  are  still  further  away — not  from  it, 
for  we  are  all  part  of  it  and  there  is  nothing  else  any- 
where— but  further  from  the  realization  of  it,  the  com- 
prehension of  it,  the  experience  of  it. 

If  we  can  see  and  grasp  even  a  little  of  the  glory,  we 
can  to  some  extent  reflect  it  to  others  who  are  less  for- 
tunate. That  light  shines  for  every  one,  and  it  is  the 
only  reality;  yet  men  by  their  ignorance  and  by  their 
foolish  actions  may  so  shut  themselves  away  that  they 
cannot  see  it,  just  as  the  sun  floods  the  whole  world 
with  light  and  life,  and  yet  men  may  hide  themselves 
in  caves  and  cellars  where  that  light  cannot  be  seen. 
Just  as  a  mirror  properly  placed  at  the  mouth  of  such 
a  cave  or  cellar  may  enable  those  within  to  participate, 


222  THE  INNER  LIFE 

at  least  to  some  extent,  in  the  benefits  of  the  light,  so 
may  we,  when  we  see  the  light,  reflect  it  to  others  who 
have  so  placed  themselves  that  they  cannot  perceive  it 
directly. 

No  words  that  we  can  use  can  really  give  even  the 
least  idea  of  such  an  experience  as  that,  for  all  with 
which  our  minds  are  acquainted  has  long  ago  disap- 
peared before  that  level  is  attained.  There  is  of  course 
at  that  level  a  sheath  of  some  sort  for  the  spirit,  but  it  is 
impossible  to  describe  it  in  any  words.  In  one  sense  it 
seems  as  though  it  were  an  atom,  and  yet  in  another  it 
seems  to  be  the  whole  plane.  Each  man  is  a  centre  of 
consciousness  and  therefore  must  have  some  position; 
that  focus  in  the  stream  of  the  life  of  the  Logos  must, 
one  would  say,  be  in  one  place  or  another.  Yet  he  feels 
as  if  he  were  the  whole  plane  and  could  focus  anywhere, 
and  wherever  for  the  moment  the  outpouring  of  this 
force  stops,  that  is  for  him  a  sheath.  The  man  still 
feels  absolutely  himself,  even  though  he  is  so  much 
more ;  and  he  is  able  to  distinguish  others.  He  is  able 
to  recognize  with  perfect  certainty  the  Great  Ones 
whom  he  knows,  yet  it  is  rather  by  instinctive  feeling 
than  by  any  resemblance  to  anything  that  he  has  seen 
before;  but  if  he  focusses  his  consciousness  upon  one 
of  These  he  gets  the  effect  of  the  form  of  the  man  as 
he  knows  it  in  the  Augoeides,  two  planes  below. 


The  Triple  Spirit 

The  Monads  are  clearly  all  centres  of  force  in  the 
Logos,  and  yet  each  possesses  a  very  distinct  individ- 
uality of  his  own.  In  the  average  man  the  monad  is 
but  little  in  touch  with  the  ego  and  the  lower  person- 


THE  TRIPLE  SPIRIT  223 

ality,  which  are  yet  somehow  expressions  of  him.  He 
knows  from  the  first  what  is  his  object  in  evolution 
and  he  grasps  the  general  trend  of  it,  but  until  that 
portion  of  him  which  expresses  itself  in  the  ego  has 
reached  a  fairly  high  stage,  he  is  scarcely  conscious 
of  the  details  of  life  down  here,  or  at  any  rate  takes 
little  interest  in  them.  He  seems  at  that  stage  not  to 
know  other  monads,  but  rests  in  indescribable  bliss 
without  any  active  consciousness  of  surroundings.  As 
evolution  progresses,  however,  he  grasps  matters  on 
the  lower  plane  much  more  fully,  and  finally  takes  them 
entirely  into  his  own  hands,  and  at  that  stage  he  knows 
both  himself  and  others,  and  his  voice  within  us  be- 
comes for  us  the  Voice  of  the  Silence.  That  voice  dif- 
fers for  us  at  different  stages.  For  us  now  in  this 
lower  consciousness  it  is  the  voice  of  the  ego;  when 
we  identify  ourselves  with  the  ego  it  is  the  voice  of 
the  spirit;  when  we  reach  the  spirit  it  is  the  voice  of 
the  monad,  and  when  in  the  far-away  future  we  iden- 
tify ourselves  wholly  with  the  monad  it  will  be  the 
voice  of  the  Logos;  but  in  every  case  we  have  to  sub- 
ject the  lower  and  rise  above  it,  before  the  voice  of  the 
higher  can  be  heard. 

This  monad  resides  permanently  upon  the  second  of 
our  planes,  and  when  he  descends  upon  the  third,  the 
plane  of  nirvana,  he  manifests  himself  as  the  triple 
spirit,  and  this  triple  spirit  is  a  reflection  or  (even 
more  truly)  an  expression  of  the  Logos  as  He  mani- 
fests Himself  in  our  set  of  planes.  His  first  manifes- 
tation on  our  highest  plane  is  also  triple.  In  the  first 
of  these  three  aspects  He  does  not  manifest  Himself 
on  any  plane  below  the  highest,  but  in  the  second  He 
descends  to  the  second  plane  and  draws  round  Him- 
self a  garment  of  its  matter,  thus  making  a  quite  sep- 
arate  expression  of  Him.      In  the   third  aspect  He 


224  THE  INNER  LIFE 

descends  to  the  upper  portion  of  the  third  plane, 
and  draws  round  Himself  matter  of  that  level,  thus 
making  a  third  manifestation.  These  three  are  the 
"three  persons  in  one  God,"  of  which  Christianity 
teaches,  telling  us  in  its  Athanasian  creed  that  we 
should  worship  "One  God  in  Trinity  and  Trinity  in 
Unity,  neither  confounding  the  persons  nor  dividing 
the  substance" — that  is  to  say,  never  confusing  in  our 
minds  the  work  and  function  of  the  three  separate 
manifestations,  each  on  its  own  plane,  yet  never  for  a 
moment  forgetting  the  eternal  unity  of  the  "substance," 
that  which  lives  behind  all  alike  on  the  highest  plane, 
at  the  level  where  these  three  are  one. 

Now  an  exact  repetition  of  this  process  takes  place 
in  the  case  of  man,  who  is  in  very  truth  made  in  the 
image  of  God.  The  spirit  is  triple  upon  the  third  plane, 
and  the  first  of  its  three  manifestations  does  not  de- 
scend below  that  level.  The  second  manifestation  de- 
scends one  stage,  on  to  the  fourth  plane,  and  clothes 
itself  with  its  matter,  and  then  we  call  it  buddhi.  Just 
as  before,  the  third  aspect  descends  two  planes,  and 
shrines  itself  in  matter  of  the  highest  level  of  the  men- 
tal plane,  and  we  call  that  manas,  and  this  trinity  of 
atma-buddhi-manas,  manifesting  in  the  causal  body,  is 
what  we  call  the  ego. 

Never  forget  that  the  ego  is  not  the  manas  only,  but 
the  spiritual  triad ;  at  our  present  stage  of  evolution 
he  rests  in  his  causal  body  on  the  higher  levels  of  the 
mental  plane,  but  as  he  passes  onwards  his  conscious- 
ness will  be  centred  on  the  buddhic  plane,  and  after- 
wards, when  he  attains  adeptship,  on  the  nirvanic.  But 
it  must  not  be  supposed  that  when  this  further  develop- 
ment takes  place  the  manas  is  in  any  way  lost.  When 
the  ego  draws  himself  up  into  the  buddhic  plane,  he 
draws  up  manas  with  him  into  that  expression  of  manas 


THE  TRIPLE  SPIRIT  225 

which  has  all  the  time  existed  on  the  buddhic  plane,  but 
has  not  been  fully  vivified  until  now.  In  the  same  way 
when  he  draws  himself  up  into  the  nirvanic  plane, 
manas  and  buddhi  exist  within  him  just  as  fully  as 
ever,  so  that  now  the  triple  spirit  is  in  full  manifesta- 
tion on  its  own  plane  in  all  its  three  aspects.  There- 
fore the  spirit  is  truly  seven-fold,  for  he  is  triple  on 
his  own  plane,  dual  on  the  buddhic,  and  single  on  the 
mental,  and  the  unity  which  is  his  synthesis  makes 
seven.  Though  he  draws  back  into  the  higher  he  re- 
tains the  definiteness  of  the  lower. 

This  is  probably  what  Madame  Blavatsky  meant 
when  she  spoke  of  the  auric  egg,  but  she  surrounded 
this  idea  with  great  mystery,  and  it  seems  likely  that 
she  was  under  some  pledge  not  to  write  freely  about  it. 
She  never  clearly  explained  the  triple  spirit,  but  evi- 
dently endeavored  to  suggest  the  idea  without  clearly 
expressing  it,  for  she  laid  great  stress  upon  the  fact 
that,  just  as  the  astral  plane  may  be  said  to  be  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  buddhic,  so  may  the  physical  be  said  to  be  a 
reflection  of  the  nirvanic,  and  then  she  furthermore 
emphasized  the  fact  that  there  are  three  bodies  or  ve- 
hicles of  man  on  the  physical  plane — apparently  going 
out  of  her  way  to  make  this  agree,  and  for  that  purpose 
dividing  the  physical  body  of  man  into  two  parts,  the 
dense  and  the  etheric,  and  adding  as  a  third  principle 
the  vitality  which  flows  through  them.  Now  as  this 
vitality  exists  on  all  the  planes,  and  might  just  as  well 
be  made  into  additional  principles  on  the  astral  and 
mental  planes  as  on  the  physical,  it  would  seem  that 
some  reason  is  required  for  her  rather  peculiar  ar- 
rangement, and  perhaps  this  reason  may  be  found  in 
her  desire  to  indicate  the  triple  spirit  without  actually 
mentioning  it.  I  think  the  President  has  said  that 
when  Madame  Blavatsky  spoke  about  the  sacred  auric 


226  THE  INNER  LIFE 

egg  she  meant  the  four  permanent  atoms  within  an 
envelope  of  matter  of  the  nirvanic  plane. 


Buddhic  Consciousness 

A  selfish  man  could  not  function  on  the  buddhic  plane, 
for  the  very  essence  of  that  plane  is  sympathy  and 
perfect  comprehension,  which  excludes  selfishness.  A 
man  cannot  make  a  buddhic  body  until  he  has  con- 
quered the  lower  planes.  There  is  a  close  connection 
between  the  astral  and  the  buddhic,  the  former  being 
in  some  ways  a  reflection  of  the  latter ;  but  it  must  not 
therefore  be  supposed  that  a  man  can  leap  from  the 
astral  consciousness  to  the  buddhic  without  developing 
the  intervening  vehicles. 

Certainly  on  the  highest  levels  of  the  buddhic  plane 
a  man  becomes  one  with  all  others,  but  we  must  not 
therefore  assume  that  he  feels  alike  towards  all.  There 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  we  shall  ever  feel  abso- 
lutely alike  towards  everybody;  why  should  we?  Even 
the  Lord  Buddha  had  His  favorite  disciple  Ananda; 
even  the  Christ  regarded  Saint  John  the  Beloved  in  a 
different  way  from  the  rest.  What  is  true  is  that  pres- 
ently we  shall  come  to  love  every  one  as  much  as  we 
now  love  our  nearest  and  dearest,  but  by  that  time  we 
shall  have  developed  for  those  nearest  and  dearest  a 
type  of  love  of  which  we  have  no  conception  now.  The 
buddhic  consciousness  includes  that  of  many  others, 
so  that  you  may  put  yourself  down  into  another  man 
and  feel  exactly  as  he  does,  looking  upon  him  from 
within  instead  of  from  without.  In  that  relation  you 
will  feel  no  shrinking  even  from  an  evil  man,  because 
you  will  recognize  him  as  a  part  of  yourself — a  weak 
part.    You  will  desire  to  help  him  by  pouring  strength 


THE  SPHERES  227 

into  that  weak  part  of  yourself.  What  is  required  is 
really  to  be  in  this  attitude  and  to  do  it,  not  merely  to 
talk  about  it  or  think  vaguely  of  it ;  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  acquire  this  power. 


Experience 

It  is  not  necessary  for  every  ego  to  go  through  every 
experience,  for  when  you  rise  to  the  buddhic  level  you 
can  gain  the  experience  of  others,  even  of  those  who 
have  opposed  progress.  We  shall  feel  by  sympathy. 
We  could  withdraw  if  we  did  not  want  to  feel  another's 
suffering;  but  we  should  choose  to  feel  it  because  we 
want  to  help.  On  the  buddhic  plane  we  enfold  the  man 
in  our  own  consciousness,  and  though  he  knows  noth- 
ing of  such  enfoldment  it  will  to  a  certain  extent  lessen 
his  sufferings.  In  all  probability  we  have  all  had  most 
of  the  experiences  of  the  savage  and  half-civilized 
stages.  An  adept  would  necessarily  wish  to  remove  or 
relieve  suffering,  but  we  may  easily  imagine  a  case  in 
which  he  would  see  that  the  good  which  was  being 
produced  by  the  suffering  so  enormously  outweighed 
the  present  pain  that  to  interfere  would  not  be  kindness 
but  cruelty  to  the  sufferer.  He  would  see  the  whole, 
not  only  the  part.  His  sympathy  would  be  deeper  than 
ours,  but  he  would  not  express  it  in  action  except  when 
action  was  useful. 


The  Spheres 

In  any  diagram  which  represents  the  various  planes 
we  usually  draw  them  as  lying  one  above  the  other  like 
the  shelves  of  a  book-case.  But  then  in  explaining  that 
diagram  we  are  careful  to  say  that  this  must  not  be 


228  THE  INNER  LIFE 

taken  literally,  since  all  the  planes  interpenetrate  and 
all  of  them  are  about  us  here  all  the  time.  That  is  per- 
fectly true,  and  yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  shelf- 
like arrangement  is  true  also.  We  may  perhaps  draw 
an  analogy  from  the  condition  of  affairs  which  we  find 
existing  upon  the  surface  of  the  physical  earth.  We 
may  take  the  solid  matter  for  all  practical  purposes  as 
existing  only  under  our  feet,  as  the  lowest  stratum 
of  physical  matter,  though  of  course  it  is  true  that 
countless  millions  of  particles  of  solid  matter  are  also 
floating  in  the  air  over  our  heads. 

We  may  say  that,  roughly  speaking,  the  liquid  matter 
of  the  earth  (chiefly  water)  lies  upon  the  surface  of  the 
solid  matter,  though  again  it  is  true  that  a  large  amount 
of  water  interpenetrates  the  earth  beneath  us,  and  also 
that  millions  of  tons  of  water  are  raised  above  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth  in  the  form  of  clouds.  Still,  the  great 
bulk  of  the  liquid  matter  of  the  earth  lies  on  the  top  of 
its  solid  matter  in  the  form  of  the  ocean,  lakes  and 
rivers.  Then  the  gaseous  matter  of  our  earth  (chiefly 
the  atmosphere)  lies  upon  the  surface  of  the  water  and 
of  the  solid  earth,  and  extends  much  further  away  into 
space  than  either  the  liquid  or  the  solid. 

All  three  conditions  of  matter  exist  here  at  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth  where  we  live,  but  the  water  in  the 
form  of  clouds  extends  further  above  that  surface  than 
does  ordinary  dust,  and  again  the  air,  though  inter- 
penetrating both  the  others,  extends  much  further 
away  still.  This  is  by  no  means  a  bad  analogy  to 
explain  the  arrangement  of  the  matter  of  the  higher 
planes. 

What  we  call  our  astral  plane  may  also  be  considered 
as  the  astral  body  of  the  earth.  It  certainly  exists  all 
around  us,  and  interpenetrates  the  solid  earth  beneath 
our  feet,  but  it  also  extends  far  away  above  our  heads, 


THE  SPHERES  229 

so  that  we  may  think  of  it  as  a  huge  ball  of  astral 
matter  with  the  physical  earth  in  the  middle  of  it,  much 
as  the  physical  body  of  a  man  exists  within  the  ovid 
form  which  is  filled  with  astral  matter,  except  that  in 
the  case  of  the  earth  the  proportionate  size  of  its  astral 
body  outside  the  physical  is  enormously  greater  than 
in  the  case  of  man.  But  just  as  in  the  case  of  the  man 
the  densest  aggregation  of  astral  matter  is  that  which 
is  within  the  periphery  of  the  physical  body,  so  in  the 
case  of  the  earth  by  far  the  greater  part  of  its  astral 
matter  is  gathered  together  within  the  limit  of  the 
physical  sphere. 

Nevertheless,  the  portion  of  the  astral  sphere  which 
is  exterior  to  the  physical,  extends  nearly  to  the  mean 
distance  of  the  moon's  orbit,  so  that  the  astral  planes 
of  the  two  worlds  touch  one  another  when  the  moon  is 
in  perigee,  but  do  not  touch  when  the  moon  is  in  apogee. 
Incidentally,  it  follows  that  at  certain  times  of  the 
month  astral  communication  with  the  moon  is  possible, 
and  at  certain  other  times  it  is  not. 

The  mental  plane  of  our  earth  bears  about  the  same 
proportion  to  the  astral  as  the  latter  does  to  the  phys- 
ical. It  also  is  a  huge  globe,  concentric  with  the  other 
two,  interpenetrating  them  both,  but  extending  much 
further  from  the  centre  than  does  the  astral  globe.  It 
will  be  seen  that  the  effect  of  this  is  that,  while  matter 
of  all  the  planes  exists  together  down  here,  there  is  a 
certain  amount  of  truth  in  the  illustration  of  the 
shelves,  for  beyond  the  limit  of  the  physical  atmosphere 
there  is  a  considerable  shell  which  consists  only  of 
astral  and  mental  matter,  and  outside  of  that  again 
another  similar  shell  which  consists  of  mental  matter 
only. 

When  we  reach  the  buddhic  plane  the  extension 
becomes  so  great  that  what  we  might  call  the  buddhic 


230  THE  INNER  LIFE 

bodies  of  the  different  planets  of  our  chain  meet  one 
another,  and  so  there  is  but  one  buddhic  body  for  the 
whole  chain,  which  means  that  in  the  buddhic  vehicle 
it  is  possible  to  pass  from  one  of  these  planets  to 
another.  I  presume  that  when  investigations  in  a 
similar  way  are  extended  to  the  nirvanic  plane  it  will 
be  found  that  that  matter  extends  so  much  further  that 
other  chains  are  included  hi  it  as  well — perhaps  the 
entire  solar  system. 

All  this  is  true  as  far  as  it  goes,  and  yet  it  does  not 
convey  a  really  accurate  idea  of  the  true  position  of 
affairs,  because  of  the  fact  that  our  minds  can  grasp 
only  three  dimensions,  whereas  in  reality  there  are 
many  more,  and  as  we  raise  our  consciousness  from 
plane  to  plane,  each  step  opens  before  us  the  possibility 
of  comprehending  one  more  of  these  dimensions.  This 
makes  it  difficult  to  describe  exactly  the  position  of 
those  who  have  passed  away  from  the  physical  life  to 
other  planes.  Some  of  such  people  tend  to  hover  round 
their  earthly  homes,  in  order  to  keep  in  touch  with 
their  friends  of  the  physical  life  and  the  places  which 
they  know ;  others,  on  the  other  hand,  have  a  tendency 
to  float  away  and  to  find  for  themselves,  as  if  by  specific 
gravity,  a  level  much  further  removed  from  the  surface 
of  the  earth. 

The  average  person  passing  into  the  heaven-life,  for 
example,  tends  to  float  at  a  considerable  distance  above 
the  surface  of  the  earth,  although  on  the  other  hand 
some  of  such  men  are  drawn  to  our  level.  Still,  broadly 
speaking,  the  inhabitants  of  the  heaven-world  may  be 
thought  of  as  living  in  a  sphere  or  ring  or  zone  round 
the  earth.  What  Spiritualists  call  the  summer-land 
extends  many  miles  above  our  heads,  and  as  people  of 
the  same  race  and  the  same  religion  tend  to  keep 
together  after  death  just  as  they  do  during  life,  we 


THE  SPHERES  231 

have  what  may  be  described  as  a  kind  of  network  of 
summer-lands  over  the  countries  to  which  belong  the 
people  who  have  created  them. 

People  find  their  own  level  on  the  astral  plane,  much 
in  the  same  way  as  objects  floating  in  the  ocean  do. 
This  does  not  mean  that  they  cannot  rise  and  fall  at 
will,  but  that  if  no  special  effort  is  made  they  come  to 
their  level  and  remain  there.  Astral  matter  gravitates 
towards  the  centre  of  the  earth  just  as  physical  matter 
does ;  both  obey  the  same  general  laws.  We  may  take 
it  that  the  sixth  sub-plane  of  the  astral  is  partially 
coincident  with  the  surface  of  the  earth,  while  the 
lowest,  or  seventh,  penetrates  some  distance  into  the 
interior. 

The  conditions  of  the  interior  of  our  earth  are  not 
easy  to  describe.  Vast  cavities  exist  in  it,  and  there 
are  races  inhabitating  these  cavities,  but  they  are  not 
of  the  same  evolution  as  ourselves.  One  of  these  evolu- 
tions, which  is  at  a  level  distinctly  lower  than  any  race 
now  existing  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth,  is  to  some 
extent  described  in  the  seventeenth  life  of  Alcyone, 
published  recently  in  The  Theosophist;  the  other  is 
more  nearly  at  our  level,  yet  utterly  different  from 
anything  that  we  know. 

As  the  centre  of  the  earth  is  approached,  matter  is 
found  to  exist  in  a  state  not  readily  comprehensible  to 
those  who  have  not  seen  it;  a  state  in  which  it  is  far 
denser  than  the  densest  metal  known  to  us,  and  yet 
flows  as  readily  as  water.  But  yet  there  is  something 
else  within  even  that.  Such  matter  is  far  too  dense  for 
any  forms  of  life  that  we  know,  but  nevertheless,  it 
has  connected  with  it  an  evolution  of  its  own. 

The  tremendous  pressures  which  exist  here  are 
utilized  by  the  Third  Logos  for  the  manufacture  of 
new  elements ;  in  fact,  the  central  portions  of  the  earth 


232  THE  INNER  LIFE 

may  with  great  truth  be  regarded  as  His  laboratory, 
for  temperatures  and  pressures  are  obtainable  there  of 
which  we  on  the  surface  have  no  conception.  It  is 
there  that,  under  His  direction,  troops  of  devas  and 
nature-spirits  of  a  particular  type  combine  and  sep- 
arate, arrange  and  rearrange  the  ultimate  physical 
atoms,  working  along  the  wonderful  double  spiral 
which  is  symbolized  in  Sir  William  Crookes'  lemnis- 
cates.  From  this  point  also,  incredible  as  it  seems  to 
us,  there  is  a  direct  connection  with  the  heart  of  the 
sun,  so  that  elements  made  there  appear  in  the  centre 
of  the  earth  without  passing  through  what  we  call  the 
surface;  but  it  is  useless  to  speak  of  this  until  the 
higher  dimensions  of  space  are  more  generally  under- 
stood. As  in  the  case  of  the  physical,  the  densest  astral 
matter  is  far  too  dense  for  the  ordinary  forms  of  astral 
life ;  but  that  also  has  other  forms  of  its  own  which  are 
quite  unknown  to  students  of  the  surface. 

In  investigating  the  interior  of  the  earth  we  did  not 
find  a  central  shaft  running  from  pole  to  pole,  such  as 
has  been  described  by  some  mediums,  nor  did  we  find 
a  number  of  concentric  spheres  resting  upon  cushions 
of  steam.  At  the  same  time  there  are  certain  forces 
which  do  play  through  concentric  layers,  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  see  what  were  the  natural  phenomena  which 
deceived  those  who,  in  perfect  good  faith,  made  that 
statement. 

There  is  unquestionably  a  force  of  etheric  pressure 
just  as  there  is  of  atmospheric  pressure,  and  it  can  be 
utilized  by  man  as  soon  as  he  can  discover  some  mate- 
rial which  is  ether-proof.  The  same  pressure  exists 
in  the  astral  world.  The  most  ordinary  example  of  this 
is  what  happens  when  a  man  leaves  his  body  in  sleep 
or  in  death. 

When  the  astral  body  is  withdrawn  from  the  phys- 


THE  SPHERES  233 

ical,  we  must  not  suppose  that  that  physical  body  is 
left  without  an  astral  counterpart.  The  pressure  of  the 
surrounding  astral  matter — and  that  really  means  the 
action  of  the  force  of  gravitation  on  the  astral  plane — 
immediately  forces  other  astral  matter  into  that 
astrally  empty  space,  just  as,  if  we  create  a  vortex 
and  draw  out  the  air  from  a  room,  other  air  flows  in 
instantly  from  the  surrounding  atmosphere.  But  that 
astral  matter  will  correspond  with  curious  accuracy  to 
the  physical  matter  which  it  interpenetrates.  Every 
variety  of  physical  matter  attracts  astral  matter  of 
corresponding  density,  so  that  solid  physical  matter  is 
interpenetrated  by  what  we  may  call  solid  astral 
matter — that  is,  matter  of  the  lowest  astral  sub-plane ; 
whereas  physical  liquid  is  interpenetrated  by  matter 
of  the  next  astral  sub-plane — astral  liquid ;  while  phys- 
ical gas  in  turn  attracts  its  particular  correspondence 
— matter  of  the  third  astral  sub-plane  from  the  bot- 
tom, which  might  be  called  astral  gas. 

Take  the  case  of  a  glass  of  water ;  the  tumbler  (be- 
ing solid  matter)  is  interpenetrated  by  astral  mat- 
ter of  the  lowest  sub-plane;  the  water  in  the  tum- 
bler (being  liquid  matter)  is  interpenetrated  by 
astral  matter  of  the  second  sub-plane,  counting  from 
the  bottom  upwards;  while  the  air  which  surrounds 
both  (being  gaseous  matter)  is  interpenetrated  by  as- 
tral matter  of  the  third  sub-plane,  counting  from  the 
bottom  upwards. 

We  must  also  realize  that  just  as  all  these  things, 
the  tumbler,  the  water,  and  the  air,  are  interpenetrated 
by  physical  ether,  so  are  their  astral  correspondences 
further  interpenetrated  by  the  variety  of  astral  matter 
which  corresponds  to  the  different  types  of  ether.  So 
when  a  man  withdraws  his  astral  body  from  the  phys- 
ical there  is  an  inrush  of  all  three  varieties  of  astral 


234  THE  INNER  LIFE 

matter,  because  man's  physical  body  is  composed  of 
solid,  liquid  and  gaseous  constituents.  Of  course  there 
is  ether  in  the  physical  body  as  well,  so  there  must  also 
be  astral  matter  of  the  higher  sub-planes  to  correspond 
to  that. 

The  temporary  astral  counterpart  formed  during  the 
absence  of  the  real  astral  body  is  thus  an  exact  copy  of 
it  so  far  as  arrangement  is  concerned,  but  it  has  no 
real  connection  with  the  physical  body,  and  could  never 
be  used  as  a  vehicle.  It  is  constructed  of  any  astral 
matter  of  the  required  kind  that  happens  to  be  handy ; 
it  is  merely  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms,  and  when 
the  true  astral  body  returns  it  pushes  out  this  other 
astral  matter  without  the  slightest  opposition.  This 
is  one  reason  for  the  extreme  care  which  ought  to  be 
exercised  as  to  the  surroundings  in  which  we  sleep, 
for  if  those  surroundings  are  evil,  astral  matter  of  the 
most  objectionable  type  may  fill  our  physical  bodies 
while  we  are  away  from  them,  leaving  behind  it  an 
influence  which  cannot  but  react  horribly  upon  the 
real  man  when  he  returns.  But  the  instant  inrush 
when  the  body  is  abandoned  shows  the  existence  of 
astral  pressure. 

In  the  same  way,  when  the  man  has  finally  left  his 
physical  body  at  death,  what  he  leaves  is  no  longer  a 
vehicle,  but  a  corpse — not  in  any  true  sense  a  body  at 
all,  but  simply  a  collection  of  disintegrating  material 
in  the  shape  of  a  body.  Just  as  we  can  no  longer  call 
that  truly  a  body,  so  we  cannot  call  the  astral  matter 
which  interpenetrates  it  truly  a  counterpart  in  the  or- 
dinary sense  of  the  word.  Take  an  imperfect  yet  per- 
haps helpful  analogy.  When  the  cylinder  of  an  engine 
is  full  of  steam,  we  may  regard  the  steam  as  the  liv- 
ing force  within  the  cylinder,  which  makes  the  engine 
move.     But  when  the  engine  is  cold  and  at  rest,  the 


THE  SPHERES  235 

cylinder  is  not  necessarily  empty ;  it  may  be  filled  with 
air;  yet  that  air  is  not  its  appropriate  living  force, 
though  it  occupies  the  same  position  as  did  the  steam. 

Astral  matter  is  never  really  solid  at  all — only  rela- 
tively solid.  You  know  that  the  mediaeval  alchemists 
always  symbolized  astral  matter  by  water,  and  one 
of  the  reasons  for  that  was  its  fluidity  and  penetra- 
bility. It  is  true  that  the  counterpart  of  any  solid  phys- 
ical object  is  always  matter  of  the  lowest  astral  sub- 
plane,  which  for  convenience  we  often  call  astral  solid 
matter;  but  we  must  not  therefore  endow  it  with  the 
qualities  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  solids  on  this 
plane.  The  particles  in  that  densest  kind  of  astral 
matter  are  further  apart  relatively  to  their  size  than 
even  gaseous  particles;  so  that  it  would  be  easier  for 
two  of  the  densest  astral  bodies  to  pass  through  each 
other  than  it  would  be  for  the  lightest  physical  gas  to 
diffuse  itself  in  the  air. 

On  the  astral  plane  one  has  not  the  sense  of  jumping 
over  a  precipice,  but  simply  of  floating  over  it.  If  you 
are  standing  upon  the  ground,  part  of  your  astral  body 
interpenetrates  the  ground  under  your  feet;  but 
through  your  astral  body  you  would  not  be  conscious  of 
this  fact  by  anything  corresponding  to  a  sense  of  hard- 
ness, or  by  any  difference  in  your  power  of  motion.  Re- 
member that  upon  the  astral  plane  there  is  no  sense 
of  touch  that  corresponds  to  ours  upon  the  physical. 
One  never  touches  the  surface  of  anything,  so  as  to  feel 
it  hard  or  soft,  rough  or  smooth,  hot  or  cold;  but  on 
coming  into  contact  with  the  interpenetrating  sub- 
stance one  would  be  conscious  of  a  different  rate  of 
vibration,  which  might  of  course  be  pleasant  or  un- 
pleasant, stimulating  or  depressing.  When  on  awaken- 
ing in  the  morning  we  remember  anything  correspond- 
ing to  our  ordinary  sense  of  touch,  it  is  only  that  in 


236  THE  INNER  LIFE 

bringing  the  remembrance  through,  the  physical  brain 
adopted  the  means  of  expression  to  which  we  are  ac- 
customed. 

Though  the  light  of  all  planes  comes  from  the  sun, 
yet  the  effect  which  it  produces  on  the  astral  plane  is 
entirely  different  from  that  on  the  physical.  In  astral 
life  there  is  a  diffused  luminosity,  not  obviously  com- 
ing from  any  special  direction.  All  astral  matter  is 
in  itself  luminous,  and  an  astral  body  is  not  like  a 
painted  sphere,  but  rather  a  sphere  of  living  fire.  It 
is  also  transparent,  and  there  are  no  shadows.  It  is 
never  dark  in  the  astral  world.  The  passing  of  a  phys- 
ical cloud  between  us  and  the  sun  makes  no  difference 
whatever  to  the  astral  plane,  nor  of  course  does  the 
shadow  of  the  earth  which  we  call  night. 

The  invisible  helper  would  not  pass  through  a  moun- 
tain, if  he  thought  of  it  as  an  obstacle;  to  learn  that 
it  is  not  an  obstacle  is  precisely  the  object  of  one  part 
of  what  is  called  "the  test  of  earth."  There  cannot 
be  an  accident  on  the  astral  plane  in  our  sense  of  the 
word,  because  the  astral  body,  being  fluidic,  cannot 
be  destroyed  or  permanently  injured,  as  the  physical 
body  can.  An  explosion  on  the  astral  plane  might  be 
temporarily  as  disastrous  as  an  explosion  of  gunpow- 
der on  the  physical,  but  the  astral  fragments  would 
quickly  collect  themselves  again. 

People  on  the  astral  plane  can  and  do  pass  through 
one  another  constantly,  and  through  fixed  astral  ob- 
jects. Remember  that  on  the  astral  plane  matter  is 
so  much  more  fluidic  and  so  much  less  densely  aggre- 
gated. There  never  can  be  anything  like  what  we 
mean  by  a  collision,  and  under  ordinary  circumstances 
two  bodies  which  interpenetrate  are  not  even  apprecia- 
bly affected.  If,  however,  the  interpenetration  lasts  for 
some  time,  as  it  does,  for  example,  when  two  persons 


THE  SPHERES  237 

sit  side  by  side  through  a  service  in  a  church  or  a  per- 
formance in  a  theatre,  a  considerable  effect  may  be 
produced. 

There  are  many  currents  which  tend  to  carry  about 
persons  who  are  lacking  in  will,  and  even  those  who 
have  will  but  do  not  know  how  to  use  it.  During  phys- 
ical life  the  matter  of  our  astral  bodies  is  constantly 
in  motion,  while  after  death,  unless  the  will  is  exer- 
cised for  the  purpose  of  preventing  it,  it  is  arranged 
in  concentric  shells  with  a  crust  of  the  coarsest  mat- 
ter on  the  outside.  If  a  man  wishes  to  be  of  service 
on  the  astral,  this  shelling  must  be  prevented,  for  those 
whose  astral  bodies  have  been  thus  re-arranged  are 
confined  to  one  level.  If  the  re-arrangement  has  al- 
ready occurred,  the  first  thing  that  is  done  when  a 
person  is  taken  in  hand  is  to  break  up  that  condition 
and  set  him  free  on  the  whole  of  the  astral  plane.  For 
those  who  are  acting  as  invisible  helpers  on  the  astral 
plane  there  are  no  separate  levels;  it  is  all  one. 

In  India  the  idea  of  service  on  the  astral  plane  is 
not  so  widely  known  as  in  the  West ;  the  idea  of  serv- 
ice to  God  for  the  attainment  of  liberation  is  more 
prominent  than  that  of  service  to  one's  fellowmen. 
Atmospheric  and  climatic  conditions  make  practically 
no  difference  to  work  on  the  astral  and  mental  planes. 
But  being  in  a  big  city  does  make  a  great  difference, 
on  account  of  the  masses  of  thought-forms.  Some 
psychics  require  a  temperature  of  about  eighty  de- 
grees in  order  to  do  their  best  work,  while  others  do 
not  work  well  except  at  a  lower  temperature. 

If  necessary,  occult  work  can  be  done  anywhere,  but 
some  places  afford  greater  facilities  than  others.  For 
example,  California  has  a  very  dry  climate  with  much 
electricity  in  the  air,  which  is  favourable  for  the  de- 
velopment of  clairvoyance.     Here  in  Adyar  there  is 


238  THE  INNER  LIFE 

no  resistance  to  our  thought-forms  on  account  of  the 
environment,  because  we  are  all  thinking  more  or  less 
along  the  same  lines.  But  we  must  remember  that 
there  may  always  be  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  per- 
son to  whom  we  are  sending  thoughts,  for  some  per- 
sons have  for  a  whole  life-time  built  round  themselves 
such  shells  of  selfishness  that  one  cannot  penetrate 
them  even  when  one  wishes  to  do  them  good. 


Jfftftlj  $*rtum 


®lj?  Egn  au&  2jta  letfuUs 


*  =a  s 


FIFTH  SECTION 

The  Ego  and  the  Personality 

HERE  are  still  many  of  our  members  who 
do  not  fully  understand  the  problem  of  the 
higher  and  the  lower  self.  Nor  is  this  won- 
derful ;  for  we  are  repeatedly  told  that  there 
is  only  one  consciousness,  and  yet  we  often  clearly 
feel  two,  so  it  is  not  remarkable  that  students  should 
be  uncertain  as  to  the  real  relation  between  these  two, 
and  should  wonder  whether  the  ego  is  entirely  dis- 
sociated from  his  physical  body  and  has  an  existence 
of  his  own  among  his  fellows  on  his  own  plane. 

This  problem  of  the  lower  and  higher  self  is  an  old 
one,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  difficult  to  realize  that  there 
is  after  all  only  one  consciousness,  and  that  the  appar- 
ent difference  is  caused  only  by  the  limitations  of  the 
various  vehicles.  The  whole  consciousness  works  on 
its  own  higher  mental  plane,  but  in  the  case  of  the  ordi- 
nary man  only  partially  and  vaguely  as  yet.  So  far  as 
it  is  active  it  is  always  on  the  side  of  good,  because 
it  desires  that  which  is  favorable  to  its  evolution  as 
a  soul.  It  puts  a  portion  of  itself  down  into  lower  mat- 
ter, and  that  portion  becomes  so  much  more  keenly 
and  vividly  conscious  in  that  matter  that  it  thinks  and 
acts  as  though  it  were  a  separate  being,  forgetting  its 
connection  with  that  less  developed  yet  far  wider  self- 
consciousness  above.  So  sometimes  it  seems  as  though 
the  fragment  worked  against  the  whole;  but  the  man 
who  is  instructed  declines  to  be  deluded,  and  reaches 
back  through  the  keen  alert  consciousness  of  the  frag- 

241 


242  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ment  to  the  true  consciousness  behind,  which  is  as 
yet  so  little  developed. 

Undoubtedly  the  ego  is  only  very  partially  expressed 
by  his  physical  body,  yet  we  should  not  be  accurate 
in  speaking  of  him  as  dissociated  from  that  body.  If 
we  figure  the  ego  as  a  solid  body  and  the  physical  plane 
as  a  surface,  the  solid  body  if  laid  upon  that  surface 
could  manifest  itself  through  that  surface  only  as  a 
plane  figure,  which  would  obviously  be  an  exceedingly 
partial  expression.  We  can  see  also  that  if  the  various 
sides  of  the  solid  were  laid  upon  the  surface  succes- 
sively we  might  obtain  expressions  which  differed  con- 
siderably, though  all  of  them  would  be  imperfect,  be- 
cause in  all  cases  the  solid  would  have  an  extension 
in  an  entirely  different  direction,  which  could  by  no 
means  be  expressed  in  the  two  dimensions  of  the  super- 
ficies. We  shall  obtain  a  nearly  accurate  symbolism 
of  the  facts  as  far  as  the  ordinary  man  is  concerned 
if  we  suppose  the  solid  to  be  conscious  only  so  far  as 
it  is  in  contact  with  the  surface,  although  the  results 
gained  through  the  manifestation  of  such  conscious- 
ness would  inhere  in  the  solid  as  a  whole,  and  would 
be  present  in  any  later  expression  of  it,  even  though 
that  might  differ  considerably  from  previous  expres- 
sions. 

It  is  only  in  the  case  of  those  already  somewhat  ad- 
vanced that  we  can  speak  of  the  ego  as  having  a  con- 
scious existence  among  his  fellows  on  his  own  plane. 
From  the  moment  that  he  breaks  off  from  his  group- 
soul  and  commences  his  separate  existence,  he  is  a 
conscious  entity ;  but  the  consciousness  is  of  an  exceed- 
ingly vague  nature.  The  only  physical  sensation  which 
occasionally  comes  to  some  persons  is  at  the  moment 
of  awakening  in  the  morning.  There  is  a  state  inter- 
mediate between  sleeping  and  waking  in  which  a  man 


THE  EGO  AND  THE  PERSONALITY  243 

is  blissfully  conscious  that  he  exists,  and  yet  is  not 
conscious  of  any  surrounding  objects,  not  capable  of 
any  movement.  Indeed,  he  sometimes  knows  that  any 
movement  would  break  the  spell  of  happiness  and  bring 
him  down  into  the  ordinary  waking  world,  and  so  he 
endeavours  to  remain  still  as  long  as  possible. 

That  condition — a  consciousness  of  existence  and  of 
intense  bliss — closely  resembles  that  of  the  ego  of  the 
average  man  upon  the  higher  mental  plane.  He  is 
wholly  centred  there  only  for  the  short  time  which 
intervenes  between  the  end  of  one  life  in  the  heaven- 
world  and  the  commencement  of  his  next  descent  into 
incarnation ;  and  during  that  short  period  there  comes 
to  him  the  flash  of  retrospect  and  prospect — a  glimpse 
of  what  his  last  life  has  done  for  him,  and  of  what  his 
next  life  is  intended  to  do.  For  many  ages  these 
glimpses  are  his  only  moments  of  full  awakening,  and 
it  is  his  desire  for  a  more  perfect  manifestation,  his 
desire  to  feel  himself  more  thoroughly  alive  and  active, 
which  drives  him  into  the  effort  of  incarnation.  It 
is  not  desire  for  life  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
but  rather  for  that  complete  consciousness  which  in- 
volves the  power  to  respond  to  all  possible  vibrations 
from  the  surroundings  on  every  plane,  so  that  he  may 
attain  the  perfection  of  sympathy. 

When  the  ego  is  still  undeveloped  the  forces  of  the 
higher  mental  plane  pass  through  him  practically  with- 
out affecting  him,  as  he  cannot  respond  to  more  than 
a  very  few  of  these  extremely  fine  vibrations.  It  needs 
powerful  and  comparatively  coarse  vibrations  to  af- 
fect him  at  first,  and  these  do  not  exist  upon  his  own 
plane,  and  for  that  reason  he  has  to  put  himself  down 
to  lower  levels  in  order  to  find  them.  Therefore  full 
consciousness  comes  to  him  at  first  only  in  the  lowest 
and  densest  of  his  vehicles,  his  attention  being  f  ocussed 


244  THE  INNER  LIFE 

for  a  long  time  down  in  the  physical  plane;  so  that, 
although  that  plane  is  so  much  lower  than  his  own 
and  offers  so  much  less  scope  for  activity,  in  those  early 
stages  he  feels  himself  much  more  alive  when  he  is 
working  there.  As  the  consciousness  increases  and 
widens  its  scope  he  gradually  begins  to  work  more  and 
more  in  matter  one  stage  higher — that  is,  in  astral 
matter. 

At  a  much  later  stage,  when  he  has  attained  to  clear 
working  in  astral  matter,  he  begins  to  be  able  also  to 
express  himself  through  the  matter  of  his  mental  body 
and  the  end  of  his  present  effort  is  achieved  when  he 
works  as  fully  and  clearly  in  the  matter  of  the  causal 
body  on  the  higher  mental  plane  as  he  does  now  on  the 
physical  plane. 

These  stages  of  full  development  of  consciousness 
must  not  be  confounded  with  the  mere  learning  to  use 
to  some  extent  the  respective  vehicles.  A  man  is  using 
his  astral  body  whenever  he  expresses  an  emotion; 
he  is  using  his  mental  body  whenever  he  thinks.  But 
that  is  very  far  from  his  being  able  to  utilize  either 
of  them  as  independent  vehicles  through  which  con- 
sciousness can  be  fully  expressed.  When  a  man  is 
fully  conscious  in  his  astral  body,  he  has  already  made 
a  considerable  amount  of  progress;  when  he  has 
bridged  over  the  chasm  between  the  astral  conscious- 
ness and  the  physical,  day  and  night  no  longer  exist 
for  him,  since  he  leads  a  life  unbroken  in  its  continu- 
ity. For  him  death  also  has  ceased  to  exist,  since  he 
carries  that  unbroken  consciousness  not  only  through 
night  and  day,  but  also  through  the  portals  of  death 
itself  and  up  to  the  end  of  his  life  upon  the  astral  plane. 

One  step  of  further  development  lies  open  to  him — - 
the  consciousness  of  the  heaven-world;  and  then  his 
life  and  memory  are  continuous  during  the  whole  of 


THE  EGO  AND  THE  PERSONALITY  245 

each  descent  into  incarnation.  Yet  one  step  more 
raises  the  full  consciousness  to  the  level  of  the  ego  on 
the  higher  mental  plane,  and  after  that  he  has  always 
with  him  the  memory  of  all  his  lives,  and  he  is  ca- 
pable of  consciously  directing  the  various  lower  mani- 
festations of  himself  at  all  points  of  his  progress. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  development  of  any 
of  these  stages  of  consciousness  is  ever  sudden.  The 
actual  rending  of  the  veil  between  two  stages  is  usually 
a  fairly  rapid  process,  sometimes  even  instantaneous. 
A  man  who  has  normally  no  memory  of  what  happens 
on  the  astral  plane  may  unintentionally,  by  some  acci- 
dent or  illness,  or  intentionally  by  certain  definite  prac- 
tices, bridge  over  the  interval  and  make  the  connec- 
tion, so  that  from  that  time  onward  his  astral  con- 
sciousness will  be  continuous,  and  his  memory  of  what 
happens  while  the  physical  body  is  asleep  will  there- 
fore be  perfect.  But  long  before  such  an  effort  or  acci- 
dent is  possible  for  him  the  full  consciousness  must 
have  been  working  in  the  astral  body,  even  though  in 
the  physical  life  he  knew  nothing  of  it. 

In  exactly  the  same  way  a  man  must  have  been  for 
a  long  time  thoroughly  practised  in  the  use  of  his  men- 
tal body  as  a  vehicle  before  he  can  hope  to  break  the 
barrier  between  that  and  the  astral,  so  that  he  can  have 
the  pleasure  of  continuous  recollection.  By  analogy 
this  leads  us  to  see  that  the  ego  must  have  been  fully 
conscious  and  active  on  his  own  plane  for  a  long  time 
before  any  knowledge  of  that  existence  can  come 
through  to  us  in  our  physical  life. 

There  are  many  in  whom  the  ego  has  already  to  some 
extent  awakened  from  the  condition  of  mere  bliss  which 
was  described  above,  and  is  at  least  partially  conscious 
of  his  own  surroundings,  and  therefore  of  other  egos. 
From  that  time  on  he  leads  a  life  and  has  interests  and 


246  THE  INNER  LIFE 

activities  on  his  own  plane ;  but  even  then  we  must  re- 
member that  he  puts  down  into  the  personality  only 
a  very  small  part  of  himeslf,  and  that  that  part  con- 
stantly becomes  entangled  in  interests  which,  because 
they  are  so  partial,  are  often  along  different  lines  from 
the  general  activities  of  the  ego  himself,  who  conse- 
quently does  not  pay  any  particular  attention  to  the 
lower  life  of  the  personality,  unless  something  rather 
unusual  happens  to  it. 

When  this  stage  is  reached  he  usually  comes  under 
the  influence  of  a  Master;  indeed  often  his  first  clear 
consciousness  of  anything  outside  himself  is  his  touch 
with  that  Master.  The  tremendous  power  of  the  Mas- 
ter's influence  magnetises  him,  draws  his  vibrations 
into  harmony  with  its  own,  and  multiplies  manyfold 
the  rate  of  his  development.  It  rays  upon  him  like 
sunshine  upon  a  flower,  and  he  evolves  rapidly  under 
its  influence.  This  is  why,  while  the  earlier  stages 
of  progress  are  so  slow  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible, 
when  the  Master  turns  His  attention  upon  the  man, 
developes  him  and  arouses  his  own  will  to  take  part 
in  the  work,  the  speed  of  his  advancement  increases 
in  geometrical  progression. 

Of  that  stream  of  divine  influence  poured  upon  the 
ego  by  the  Master,  the  amount  which  can  be  passed 
on  to  the  personality  depends  upon  the  connection  be- 
tween it  and  the  ego,  which  is  very  different  in  dif- 
ferent cases.  There  is  almost  infinite  variety  in  human 
life.  The  spiritual  force  rays  upon  the  ego,  and  some 
little  of  it  certainly  comes  through  into  the  person- 
ality, because  though  the  ego  has  put  forth  a  part  of 
himself  he  does  not  cut  himself  off  entirely  from  it, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  in  the  case  of  all  ordi- 
nary people  the  ego  and  the  personality  are  very  dif- 
ferent things. 


THE  EGO  AND  THE  PERSONALITY  247 

The  ego  in  ordinary  men  has  not  much  grasp  of  the 
personality,  nor  a  clear  conception  of  his  purpose  in 
sending  it  forth;  and,  again,  the  small  piece  which 
meets  us  in  the  personality  grows  to  have  ways  and 
opinions  of  its  own.  It  is  developing  by  the  experience 
which  it  gains,  and  this  is  passed  on  to  the  ego;  but 
along  with  this  real  development  it  usually  gathers  a 
good  deal  which  is  hardly  worthy  of  that  name.  It 
acquires  knowledge,  but  also  prejudices,  which  are 
not  really  knowledge  at  all.  It  does  not  become  quite 
free  from  these  prejudices — not  only  of  knowledge 
(or  rather  its  absence)  but  of  feeling  and  action  as 
well — until  the  man  reaches  adeptship.  It  gradually 
discovers  these  things  to  be  prejudices,  and  progresses 
through  them ;  but  it  has  always  a  great  deal  of  limita- 
tion from  which  the  ego  is  entirely  free. 

As  to  the  amount  of  the  spiritual  force  which  is 
passed  to  the  personality,  one  can  only  decide  in  a 
particular  case  by  using  clairvoyance.  But  something 
of  it  must  flow  through  always,  because  the  lower  is 
attached  to  the  higher,  just  as  the  hand  is  attached 
to  the  body  by  the  arm.  It  is  certain  that  the  person- 
ality must  get  something,  but  it  can  have  only  what 
it  has  made  itself  able  to  receive.  It  is  also  a  ques- 
tion of  qualities.  The  Master  often  plays  upon  quali- 
ties in  the  ego  which  are  much  obscured  in  the  per- 
sonality, and  in  that  case  of  course  very  little  comes 
down.  As  only  those  experiences  of  the  personality 
can  be  handed  on  to  the  spiritual  or  permanent  ego 
which  are  compatible  with  his  nature  and  interests, 
so  only  those  impulses  to  which  it  is  able  to  respond 
can  express  themselves  in  the  personality.  Remember, 
though,  that  the  former  tends  to  exclude  the  bad  and 
the  latter  the  good — or  rather  we  should  call  them 
the  material  and  the  spiritual,  for  nothing  is  bad. 


248  THE  INNER  LIFE 

One  may  sometimes  see  by  clairvoyance  many  of 
these  influences  at  work.  On  a  certain  day,  for  ex- 
ample, we  may  see  a  characteristic  of  the  personality 
much  intensified,  with  no  outward  reason.  The  cause 
is  often  to  be  found  in  what  is  taking  place  at  some 
higher  level — the  stimulation  of  that  quality  in  the 
ego.  Sometimes  a  man  finds  himself  overflowing  v.  ith 
affection  or  devotion,  and  quite  unable  on  the  physical 
plane  to  understand  why.  The  cause  is  usually,  again. 
the  stimulation  of  the  ego,  or  it  may  be  that  the  ego 
is  taking  some  special  interest  in  the  personality  for 
the  time  being. 

In  meditation  we  sometimes  draw  such  attention  on 
the  part  of  the  ego,  though  it  is  well  to  keep  in  mind 
that  we  must  try  to  reach  up  to  join  that  higher  ac- 
tivity, rather  than  to  interrupt  it  to  draw  down  its 
attention  to  the  lower.  The  higher  influence  is  cer- 
tainly invited  by  right  meditation,  which  is  always 
effective,  even  though  on  the  physical  plane  things  may 
seem  to  be  very  dull  and  quite  without  zest.  The  reach- 
ing upwards  of  the  ego  himself  often  means  his  neg- 
lect to  send  energy  down  to  the  personality,  and  this, 
of  course,  leaves  the  latter  feeling  rather  dull  and  in 
the  shade.  The  extent,  then,  to  which  the  personality 
is  influenced  by  the  effort  of  the  Master  depends  upon 
two  things  principally — the  strength  of  the  connec- 
tion at  the  time  between  the  ego  and  the  personality; 
and  the  particular  work  which  the  Master  is  doing 
upon  the  ego,  that  is,  the  particular  qualities  upon 
which  He  is  playing. 

Meditation  and  the  study  of  spiritual  subjects  in 
this  earthly  life  make  a  very  great  difference  in  the 
life  of  the  ego.  The  ordinary  person  who  has  not  taken 
up  spiritual  matters  seriously  has  only  a  thread  of 
connection  between  the  higher  and  the  lower  self.    The 


THE  EGO  AND  THE  PERSONALITY  249 

personality  in  his  case  seems  to  be  all,  and  the  ego, 
though  he  undoubtedly  exists  on  his  own  plane,  is  not 
at  all  likely  to  be  doing  anything  actively  there.  He 
is  very  much  like  a  chicken  which  is  growing  inside 
an  egg.  But  in  the  case  of  some  of  us  who  have  been 
making  efforts  in  the  right  direction,  we  may  hope 
that  the  ego  is  becoming  quite  vividly  conscious.  He 
has  broken  through  his  shell,  and  is  living  a  life  of 
great  activity  and  power.  As  we  go  on,  we  shall  be- 
come able  to  unify  our  personal  consciousness  with  the 
life  of  the  ego,  as  far  as  that  is  possible,  and  then  we 
shall  have  only  the  one  consciousness ;  even  down  here 
we  shall  have  the  consciousness  of  the  ego,  who  will 
know  all  that  is  going  on.  But  with  many  people  at 
the  present  day  there  is  often  considerable  opposition 
between  the  personality  and  the  ego. 

There  are  other  things  to  be  taken  into  account.  It 
is  by  no  means  always  accurate  to  judge  the  ego  by 
his  manifestation  in  the  personality.  An  ego  of  in- 
tensely practical  type  may  make  much  more  show  on 
the  physical  plane  than  another  of  far  higher  develop- 
ment, if  the  energy  of  the  latter  happens  to  be  concen- 
trated almost  exclusively  upon  the  causal  or  buddhic 
levels.  Therefore  people  who  see  only  on  the  physical 
plane  are  frequently  entirely  wrong  in  their  estimation 
of  the  relative  position  of  others. 

If  you  have  to  deal  with  a  fairly  advanced  ego,  you 
will  sometimes  find  him  rather  inconsiderate  of  his 
body.  You  see  whatever  is  put  down  into  the  person- 
ality is  so  much  taken  from  him!  I  have  again  and 
again  seen  cases  in  which  the  ego  was  to  some  extent 
impatient  and  withdrew  into  himself  somewhat;  but 
on  the  other  hand  in  cases  such  as  these  there  is  al- 
ways a  flow  between  the  ego  and  the  personality,  which 
is  not  possible  with  the  ordinary  man.    In  the  ordinary 


250  THE  INNER  LIFE 

man  the  part  is,  as  it  were,  put  down  and  left,  though 
not  of  course  quite  cut  off;  but  at  this  more  advanced 
stage  there  is  a  constant  communication  between  the 
two  along  the  channel.  Therefore,  the  ego  can  with- 
draw a  great  deal  of  himself  whenever  he  chooses,  and 
leave  a  very  poor  representation  of  the  real  man  be- 
hind. So  the  relation  between  the  lower  and  the  higher 
self  varies  much  in  different  people  and  at  different 
stages  of  development. 

As  to  the  work  of  the  ego,  he  may  be  learning  things 
on  his  own  plane ;  or  he  may  be  helping  other  egos — 
there  are  many  kinds  of  work  for  which  he  may  need 
an  accession  of  strength.  And  then  he  may  forget  for 
a  time  to  pay  his  personality  proper  attention,  just  as 
even  a  good  man  may  occasionally,  under  some  special 
pressure  of  business,  forget  his  horse  or  his  dog.  Some- 
times when  that  happens  the  personality  reminds  him 
of  its  existence  by  blundering  into  some  foolishness 
which  causes  serious  suffering.  You  may  have  noticed 
that  sometimes,  after  you  have  completed  a  special 
piece  of  work  that  has  needed  the  co-operation  of 
the  ego  to  a  large  extent — as,  for  example,  lectur- 
ing to  a  large  audience — he  takes  away  the  energy 
and  leaves  the  personality  with  only  enough  to  feel 
rather  dispirited.  For  a  time  he  admitted  that 
there  was  some  importance  in  the  work,  and  there- 
fore poured  down  a  little  more  of  himself,  but  after- 
wards he  leaves  the  poor  personality  feeling  rather 
depressed. 

Of  course,  depression  comes  much  more  often  from 
other  reasons,  such  as  the  presence  of  an  astral  entity 
in  a  low-spirited  condition,  or  of  some  non-human 
beings.  And  joy  also  is  not  always  due  to  the  influence 
of  the  ego,  for  the  fact  is  that  the  man  does  not  think 
much  about  his  own  feelings  when  he  is  in  a  fit  condi- 


THE  EGO  AND  THE  PERSONALITY  251 

tion  to  receive  an  influx  of  power.  Joy  may  be  produced 
by  the  proximity  of  harmonious  nature-spirits,  or  in  a 
variety  of  other  ways.  The  channel  between  the  ego  and 
personality  is  by  no  means  always  open.  Sometimes 
it  appears  to  be  almost  choked  up — a  condition  of  af- 
fairs which  is  quite  a  possibility  in  view  of  its  narrow- 
ness in  most  cases.  Then  the  force  may  break  through 
again  on  some  occasion,  such  as  that  of  a  conversion. 
But  for  many  of  us  there  is  a  constant  flow  in  some 
measure.  Meditation,  conscientiously  done,  opens  the 
channel  and  keeps  it  open.  Always  remember,  though, 
that  it  is  better  to  try  to  go  up  to  the  ego  than  to  bring 
it  down  to  the  personality. 

Every  ego  has  a  certain  knowledge  of  his  own.  He 
obtains  a  glimpse,  between  lives,  of  his  past  and  fu- 
ture ;  in  the  undeveloped  man  this  awakens  the  ego  for 
a  moment,  after  which  he  falls  asleep  again.  During 
physical  life  the  ordinary  ego  is  to  some  extent  capable 
of  brooding  watchfulness  and  a  little  effort,  but  is  still 
in  a  sleepy  condition.  With  a  developed  man  the  ego 
is  fully  awake.  The  ego  in  course  of  time  discovers 
that  there  are  a  good  many  things  which  he  can  do, 
and  when  this  happens  he  may  rise  into  a  condition  in 
which  he  has  a  definite  life  on  his  own  plane,  though 
in  many  cases  it  is  even  then  but  dreamy.  It  is  the 
ego's  purpose  to  learn  to  be  fully  active  on  all  planes, 
even  the  physical. 

Suppose  you  have  an  ego  whose  principal  method 
of  manifesting  himself  is  by  affection.  That  quality 
is  what  he  wants  exhibited  by  his  personality,  and  if 
you  down  here  try  to  feel  strong  affection  and  make  a 
specialty  of  that,  the  ego  will  promptly  throw  more  of 
himself  down  into  the  personality,  because  he  finds 
in  it  exactly  what  he  desires.  Be  careful  to  provide 
what  he  needs,  and  he  will  quickly  take  advantage  of 


252  THE  INNER  LIFE 

it.  Egos  on  their  own  plane  can  help  other  egos,  when 
they  are  sufficienty  developed  to  do  so.  The  ego  of 
the  ordinary  person  has  rather  a  vegetable  conscious- 
ness or  life,  and  seems  to  be  only  just  aware  of  other 
egos.  The  personality  will  not  know  what  the  ego 
does,  unless  they  have  been  unified.  The  ego  may  know 
the  Master  while  the  personality  does  not.  The  study 
of  inner  things,  and  living  the  life,  wakes  up  the  ego. 
Purely  unselfish  devotion  belongs  to  the  higher  planes 
and  concerns  him. 

I  do  not  think  the  experiences  of  the  personality 
can  be  transmitted  to  the  ego,  but  the  essence  of  them 
may.  He  cares  little  for  the  details,  but  he  wants  the 
essence  of  it.  Any  of  those  thoughts  that  we  consider 
evil  are  impossible  for  the  ego.  For  precise  defini- 
tion he  must  come  down  into  the  physical  body.  He 
devotes  himself  more  especially  during  the  heaven-life 
to  the  assimilation  of  the  experiences  of  the  person- 
ality, but  he  is  doing  it  all  the  time.  When  you  take 
up  the  study  of  Theosophy,  and  live  the  life,  you  begin 
to  call  the  attention  of  the  ego  by  sending  up  vibra- 
tions to  which  he  can  respond.  The  ordinary  man  has 
in  his  life  little  that  appeals  to  the  ego. 

High  unselfish  affection  and  devotion  belong  to  the 
highest  astral  sub-plane,  and  these  reflect  themselves 
in  the  corresponding  matter  of  the  mental  plane,  so 
that  they  touch  the  causal,  not  the  lower  mental.  Thus 
only  unselfish  thoughts  affect  the  ego.  All  the  lower 
thoughts  affect  the  permanent  atoms,  but  not  the  ego ; 
and  corresponding  to  them  you  would  find  gaps  in  the 
causal  body,  not  bad  colors.  Selfishness  below  shows 
in  it  as  absence  of  affection  or  sympathy,  and  when 
the  good  quality  developes  the  gap  will  be  filled  up. 
In  the  causal  body  you  can  see  whether  a  man  can 
possibly  fail  in  this  or  that  quality.     Try  to  develope 


COUNTERPARTS  253 

the  qualities  the  ego  wants,  and  he  will  come  down 
to  help. 

As  is  said  in  Light  on  the  Path,  watch  for  the  ego, 
and  let  him  fight  through  you,  and  yet  at  the  same 
time  never  forget  that  you  are  the  ego.  Therefore 
identify  yourself  with  him  and  make  the  lower  give 
way  to  you  the  higher.  Yet  do  not  be  too  greatly  dis- 
heartened if  you  should  fall  even  many  times,  for  even 
failure  is  to  a  certain  extent  a  success,  since  we  learn 
by  it  and  so  are  wiser  to  meet  the  next  problem.  We 
cannot  always  succeed  now  at  every  point,  though  we 
surely  shall  do  so  ultimately.  But  never  forget  that 
it  is  not  expected  of  us  that  we  shall  always  succeed, 
but  only  that  we  shall  do  our  best. 


Counterparts 

When  the  ego  descends  into  incarnation,  he  draws 
round  himself  a  mass  of  astral  matter,  not  yet  formed 
into  a  definite  astral  body ;  this  takes,  in  the  first  place, 
the  shape  of  that  ovoid  which  is  the  nearest  expres- 
sion that  we  can  realize  of  the  true  shape  of  the  causal 
body.  But  when  the  further  step  downward  and  out- 
ward into  physical  incarnation  is  taken,  and  a  little 
physical  body  is  formed  in  the  midst  of  that  astral  mat- 
ter, it  immediately  begins  to  exert  a  violent  attrac- 
tion over  it,  so  that  the  great  majority  of  the  astral 
matter  (which  previously  may  be  thought  of  as  fairly 
evenly  distributed  over  the  large  oval)  now  becomes 
concentrated  into  the  periphery  of  that  physical  body. 

As  the  physical  body  grows,  the  astral  matter  fol- 
lows its  every  change,  and  thus  we  find  man  present- 
ing the  spectacle  of  an  astral  body,  ninety-nine  per 


254  THE  INNER  LIFE 

cent  of  which  is  compressed  within  the  periphery  of 
his  physical  body,  only  about  the  remaining  one  per 
cent  filling  the  rest  of  the  ovoid  form.  In  the  plates 
in  Man,  Visible  and  Invisible  we  have  sketched  in  the 
outline  of  the  physical  body  merely  in  pencil,  so  that 
it  shows  but  slightly,  because  my  especial  desire  in 
that  book  was  to  emphasize  the  colors  of  the  ovoid, 
and  the  way  in  which  they  illustrate  the  development 
of  man  by  the  transfer  of  vibrations  from  the  lower 
bodies  to  the  higher ;  but  in  reality  that  astral  counter- 
part of  the  physical  body  is  very  solid  and  definite,  and 
quite  clearly  distinguishable  from  the  surrounding 
ovoid. 

Note,  therefore,  that  the  astral  matter  takes  the  ex- 
act form  of  the  physical  matter  merely  because  of  the 
attraction  which  the  latter  has  for  the  former.  But 
we  must  further  realize  tbat  although  we  may  speak 
of  the  lowest  sub-plane  of  the  astral  as  corresponding 
to  solid  physical  matter,  it  is  yet  very  different  in  tex- 
ture, for  all  astral  matter  bears  to  its  corresponding 
physical  matter  something  the  same  sort  of  relation 
that  the  liquid  bears  to  the  solid.  Therefore  the  par- 
ticles of  the  astral  body,  whether  in  the  finest  or  coars- 
est parts  of  it,  are  constantly  in  motion  among  them- 
selves, just  as  are  particles  of  flowing  water;  and  it 
will  consequently  be  seen  that  it  is  quite  impossible 
for  the  astral  body  to  possess  specialized  organs  in  the 
same  sense  as  does  the  physical  body. 

No  doubt  there  is  an  exact  counterpart  in  astral  mat- 
ter of  the  rods  and  cones  which  make  up  the  retina 
of  the  physical  eye ;  but  the  particles  which  at  one  mo- 
ment are  occupying  that  particular  position  in  an  astral 
body  may,  a  second  or  two  later,  be  moving  through 
the  hand  or  the  foot.  One  does  not,  therefore,  see  upon 
the  astral  plane  by  means  of  the  astral  counterpart  of 


COUNTERPARTS  255 

the  physical  eyes,  nor  does  one  hear  with  the  astral 
counterpart  of  the  physical  ears ;  indeed,  it  is  perhaps 
not  exactly  correct  to  apply  the  terms  "seeing"  and 
"hearing"  to  astral  methods  of  cognizance,  since  these 
terms  are  commonly  held  to  imply  specialized  sense- 
organs,  whereas  the  fact  is  that  every  particle  in  the 
astral  body  is  capable  of  receiving  and  transmitting 
vibrations  from  one  of  its  own  type,  but  its  own  type 
only.  Thus  when  one  obtains  a  glimpse  of  astral  con- 
sciousness, one  is  surprised  to  find  oneself  able  to  see 
on  all  sides  simultaneously,  instead  of  only  in  front 
as  one  does  on  the  physical  plane.  The  exact  corre- 
spondence of  the  astral  body  to  the  physical  therefore 
is  merely  a  matter  of  external  form,  and  does  not  at 
all  involve  any  similarity  of  function  in  the  various 
organs. 

But  the  attraction  continued  all  through  life  sets  up 
a  kind  of  habit  or  momentum  in  the  astral  matter, 
which  causes  it  to  retain  the  same  form  even  while  it 
is  withdrawn  temporarily  from  the  attraction  of  the 
physical  body  at  night  and  permanently  after  death; 
so  that  even  through  the  long  astral  life  the  lineaments 
of  the  physical  body  which  was  put  aside  at  death  will 
still  be  preserved  almost  unchanged.  Almost — because 
we  must  not  forget  that  thought  has  a  powerful  influ- 
ence upon  astral  matter  and  can  readily  mould  it,  so 
that  a  man  who  habitually  thinks  of  himself  after 
death  as  younger  than  he  actually  was  at  the  time  of 
that  death  will  gradually  come  to  present  a  somewhat 
younger  appearance. 

A  questioner  asks,  "If  the  arm  of  a  man,  the  branch 
of  a  tree,  or  the  leg  of  a  chair  were  cut  off,  would  in 
each  case  the  astral  counterpart  also  be  removed,  and 
can  we,  by  breaking  an  astral  counterpart,  produce 
a  fracture  in  a  physical  object?    That  is  to  say,  if  with 


256  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  hand  of  my  astral  body  I  break  the  astral  counter- 
part of  a  chair,  will  the  physical  chair  also  be  broken  ?" 

The  three  cases  given  are  not  quite  analogous.  Both 
the  tree  and  the  man  have  the  life  within  them  which 
makes  the  astral  body  in  each  case  a  coherent  whole. 
It  is  strongly  attracted  by  the  particles  of  the  physical 
body,  and  therefore  adapts  itself  to  its  shape,  but  if 
part  of  that  physical  body  be  removed,  the  coherence 
of  the  living  astral  matter  is  stronger  than  the  attrac- 
tion towards  that  severed  portion  of  the  physical.  Con- 
sequently the  astral  counterpart  of  the  arm  or  branch 
will  not  be  carried  away  with  the  severed  physical 
fragment.  Since  it  has  acquired  the  habit  of  keep- 
ing that  particular  form,  it  will  continue  for  a  short 
time  to  retain  the  original  shape,  but  will  soon  with- 
draw within  the  limits  of  the  maimed  form. 

In  the  case  of  an  inanimate  body,  such  as  a  chair 
or  a  basin,  there  would  not  be  the  same  kind  of  indi- 
vidual life  to  maintain  cohesion.  Consequently  when 
the  physical  object  was  broken  the  astral  counterpart 
would  also  be  divided ;  but  it  would  not  be  possible  to 
break  an  astral  counterpart,  and  in  that  way  to  affect 
the  physical  object.  In  other  words  the  act  of  frac- 
tion must  begin  on  the  physical  plane. 

One  could  of  course  move  a  purely  astral  object  by 
means  of  an  astral  hand  if  one  wished,  but  not  the 
astral  counterpart  of  a  physical  object.  In  order  to 
perform  this  latter  feat  it  would  be  necessary  to  mate- 
rialize a  hand  and  move  the  physical  object,  when  the 
astral  counterpart  would  of  course  accompany  it.  The 
astral  counterpart  is  there  because  the  physical  object 
is  there,  just  as  the  scent  of  a  rose  fills  the  room  be- 
cause the  rose  is  there.  To  suggest  that  by  moving 
the  astral  counterpart  one  could  also  move  the  physi- 
cal object  is  like  suggesting  that  by  moving  the  smell 


COUNTERPARTS  257 

one  could  move  the  physical  rose  which  causes  the 
smell. 

The  astral  body  changes  its  particles  as  does  the 
physical,  but  fortunately  the  clumsy  and  tiresome  proc- 
ess of  cooking,  eating  and  digesting  food  is  not  a  ne- 
cessity on  the  astral  plane.  The  particles  which  fall 
away  are  replaced  by  others  from  the  surrounding  at- 
mosphere. The  purely  physical  cravings  of  hunger  and 
thirst  no  longer  exist  there ;  but  the  desire  of  the  glut- 
ton to  gratify  the  sensation  of  taste,  and  the  desire  of 
the  drunkard  for  the  exhilaration  which  follows,  for 
him,  the  absorption  of  alcohol — these  are  both  astral, 
and  therefore  they  still  persist,  and  cause  great  suffer- 
ing because  of  the  absence  of  the  physical  body  through 
which  alone  they  could  be  satisfied. 

So  far  as  we  are  at  present  aware  the  astral  body 
does  not  appear  to  be  susceptible  to  fatigue. 

The  ordinary  man  while  possessing  a  physical  body 
naturally  never  has  the  opportunity  of  working  for  any 
length  of  time  consecutively  upon  the  astral  plane,  for 
his  nights  of  astral  work  alternate  with  days  of  phys- 
ical work.  I  knew,  however,  of  one  case  of  a  man  who, 
having  the  right  to  take  a  rapid  reincarnation,  had  to 
wait  upon  the  astral  plane  twenty-five  years  for  the 
special  conditions  which  he  required.  He  spent  the 
whole  of  this  time  in  working  for  the  help  of  others, 
without  any  intermission  except  the  occasional  attend- 
ance at  classes  held  by  pupils  of  our  Masters ;  and  he 
assured  me  that  he  had  never  felt  the  slightest  sense  of 
fatigue — that  in  fact  he  had  forgotten  what  it  meant 
to  be  tired. 

We  all  know  that  excessive  or  long-continued  emo- 
tion tires  us  very  quickly  in  ordinary  life,  and  since 
emotion  is  an  expression  of  the  astral,  that  may  per- 
haps lead  some  to  suppose  that  fatigue  of  the  astral 


258  THE  INNER  LIFE 

body  is  possible.  I  think,  however,  that  it  will  be  found 
that  what  is  subject  to  fatigue  is  merely  the  physical 
organism  through  which  everything  in  us  which  mani- 
fests on  this  plane  must  pass.  What  we  call  mental 
fatigue  is  a  parallel  case.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
fatigue  in  the  mind;  what  we  call  by  that  name  is  only 
fatigue  of  the  physical  brain  through  which  that  mind 
has  to  express  itself. 

A  spectator  who  has  not  been  able  to  raise  his  sight 
above  the  astral  level  will  of  course  see  only  astral  mat- 
ter when  he  looks  at  the  aura  of  his  fellow-men.  He  will 
see  that  this  astral  matter  not  only  surrounds  the 
physical  body  but  also  interpenetrates  it,  and  that  with- 
in the  periphery  of  that  body  it  is  much  more  densely 
aggregated  than  in  that  part  of  the  aura  which  lies 
outside.  This  is  due  to  the  attraction  of  the  large 
amount  of  dense  astral  matter  which  is  gathered  to- 
gether there  as  the  counterpart  of  the  cells  of  the  phys- 
ical body. 

When  during  sleep  the  astral  body  is  drawn  from  the 
physical  this  arrangement  still  persists,  and  then  any 
one  looking  at  the  astral  body  with  clairvoyant  vision 
would  still  see,  just  as  before,  a  form  resembling  the 
physical  body  surrounded  by  an  aura.  That  form 
would  now  be  composed  only  of  astral  matter,  but  still 
the  great  difference  in  density  between  it  and  its  sur- 
rounding mist  would  be  quite  sufficient  to  make  it 
clearly  distinguishable,  even  though  it  is  itself  only 
a  form  of  denser  mist. 

There  is  a  considerable  difference  in  appearance  be- 
tween the  evolved  and  the  unevolved  man.  Even  in  the 
case  of  the  latter  the  features  and  shape  of  the  inner 
form  are  recognizable  always,  though  blurred  and 
indistinct;  but  the  surrounding  egg  scarcely  de- 
serves the  name,  for  it  is  in  fact  a  mere  shapeless 


COLORS  IN  THE  ASTRAL  BODY  259 

wreath  of  mist,  having  neither  regularity  nor  perma- 
nence of  outline. 

In  the  more  developed  man  the  change  is  very 
marked,  both  in  the  aura  and  the  form  within  it.  This 
latter  is  much  more  distinct  and  definite — a  closer  re- 
production of  the  man's  physical  appearance ;  while  in- 
stead of  the  floating  mist-wreath  we  see  a  sharply  de- 
fined ovoid  form  preserving  its  shape  unaffected  amidst 
all  the  varied  currents  which  are  always  swirling 
round  it  on  the  astral  plane.  Though  the  arrangement 
of  the  astral  body  is  largely  changed  after  death  by  the 
action  of  the  desire  elemental,  such  alteration  does 
not  in  any  way  affect  the  recognizability  of  the  form 
within  the  egg,  though  the  natural  changes  which  take 
place  tend  on  the  whole  to  make  the  form  grow  some- 
what fainter  and  more  spiritual  in  appearance  as  time 
passes  on. 


Colors  in  the  Astral  Body 

Any  comparatively  permanent  color  in  the  astral 
body  means  a  persistent  vibration,  which  in  the  course 
of  time  produces  its  effect  upon  the  mental  body,  and 
also  upon  the  causal  body,  so  that  the  higher  qualities 
developed  by  the  life  on  the  lower  planes  are  grad- 
ually built  into  the  permanent  causal  body,  and  so  be- 
come qualities  of  the  soul  itself.  The  colors  may  be 
mingled  to  any  extent;  for  example,  affection  (rose) 
mingled  with  religious  devotion  (blue)  will  give  a 
lovely  violet.  It  is  only  the  good  thought  or  feeling 
which  can  produce  an  effect  in  the  causal  body,  and 
so  be  permanently  stored  up  as  part  of  the  man.  Other 
kinds  of  thought  and  feeling  remain  in  the  lower  ve- 
hicles and  are  comparatively  impermanent.  The  size 
of  a  thought-form  shows  the  strength  of  the  emotion. 


260  the  inner  life 

The  Causal  Body 

No  number  of  physical  bodies  could  fully  contain 
the  causal  body,  any  more  than  any  number  of  lines 
can  make  a  square,  or  any  number  of  squares  can  make 
a  cube.  The  ego  puts  himself  down  into  his  various 
bodies  with  the  hope  of  gaining  two  things — to  make 
the  causal  body  learn  to  respond  to  more  vibrations, 
and  also  to  increase  its  size.  Most  people  are  not  more 
than  just  conscious  in  the  causal  body.  The  strings 
of  such  egos  cannot  be  played  upon  directly,  but  are 
affected  from  below  by  way  of  overtones.  Most  men 
can  at  present  only  work  on  the  matter  of  the  third 
sub-plane  of  the  mental  (the  lowest  part  of  their  causal 
bodies),  and  indeed  only  the  lower  matter  even  of  that 
is  usually  in  operation.  When  they  are  on  the  Path, 
the  second  sub-plane  opens  up.  The  adept  uses  the 
whole  causal  body  while  his  consciousness  is  on  the 
physical  plane.  A  rough  and  ready  way  of  deciding 
at  what  stage  a  man  stands  is  to  look  at  the  causal 
body.  It  shows  also  how  he  arrived  there.  Men  de- 
velop unequally — we  are  all  undeveloped  in  some  way. 
An  animal  has  a  minimum-sized  causal  body  as  soon  as 
he  is  individualized ;  then  it  has  to  be  developed  both  as 
to  size  and  color. 


The  Desire-Elemental 

Much  of  the  matter  of  the  astral  body  is  vivified  by 
elemental  essence,  which  is  cut  off  for  the  time  being 
from  the  general  mass  which  belongs  to  the  plane,  and 
becomes  the  man's  expression  on  that  plane.  This  is 
a  living,  though  not  an  intelligent  essence.  But  it  has 
a  kind  of  instinct  which  Mr.  Sinnett  calls  "dawning 


THE  DESIRE  ELEMENTAL  261 

intelligence,"  which  guides  it  into  getting  what  it 
wants.  Blindly  and  without  reason,  but  instinctively, 
it  seeks  its  ends,  and  shows  great  ingenuity  in  obtain- 
ing its  desires  and  in  furthering  its  evolution. 

Evolution  for  it  is  a  descent  into  matter;  its  aim  is 
to  become  a  mineral-  monad.  Therefore,  its  object  in 
life  is  to  get  as  near  to  the  physical  plane  as  it  can, 
to  come  into  contact  with  as  many  of  the  vibrations 
of  the  coarser  kind  as  possible.  It  knows  nothing 
of  you;  it  could  not  know  or  imagine  anything  of 
you;  but  it  does  realize  that  it  is  apart  from  the 
general  stock,  and  that  it  is  good  to  be  apart.  It 
is  not  a  devil,  and  you  must  not  get  the  idea  that  it  is  to 
be  hated. 

It  is  part  of  the  Divine  Life,  just  as  you  are;  but 
its  interests  are  diametrically  opposed  to  yours.  It 
wants  to  evolve  downwards;  you  want  to  evolve  up- 
wards. It  desires  to  preserve  its  separate  life,  and 
it  feels  that  it  can  do  so  only  by  means  of  its  connec- 
tion with  you.  It  is  conscious  of  a  something  which 
is  your  lower  mind,  and  realizes  that  if  it  can  englobe, 
as  it  were,  this  mind,  and  persuade  you  that  its  and 
your  interests  are  one,  you  will  increasingly  supply  it 
with  the  sensations  it  desires.  When  it  gets  the  mat- 
ter sufficiently  entangled  to  suit  its  purpose,  you  cannot 
then  withdraw  it,  the  result  being  that  some  of  this 
matter  of  the  lower  mind  is  then  lost  to  you  altogether 
in  the  life  after  death. 

So,  you  see,  here  is  the  desire-elemental  seeking  its 
own  ends;  not  knowing  that  it  is  injuring  you  by  try- 
ing to  entangle  your  lower  mind.  The  more  it  can  do 
this  the  better  for  it,  for  the  more  mental  matter  it 
can  entangle  the  longer  will  be  its  astral  life — that  life 
still  enduring  even  after  you  have  passed  into  the 
heaven-world.    In  Theosophical  phraseology  it  has  been 


262  THE  INNER  LIFE 

known  as  the  shade.  Your  business  is  not  to  allow 
yourself  to  be  deceived;  it  understands  nothing  of 
your  evolution,  and  is  not  responsible  for  it;  it  simply 
tries  to  turn  you  to  its  own  purpose.  You  ought  to 
understand  the  situation,  and  refuse  to  be  drawn.  Do 
let  us  realize  this :  that  this  elemental  is  not  ourselves. 
It  is  never  you  who  desire  these  lower  things,  but  this 
creature. 

It  is  not  so  much  that  we  have  to  make  a  great  fight 
against  it,  but  we  should  shake  ourselves  free,  saying : 
"This  is  not  I ;  I  do  not  want  this  lower  thing."  Some- 
body wants  it.  Yes,  it  is  this  elemental ;  and  you  are 
responsible  for  its  likes  and  wants,  for  in  your  last 
life  you  made  it  what  it  is.  Not  that  this  particular 
collection  of  astral  matter  and  elemental  essence  ex- 
isted then ;  it  did  not,  for  it  was  newly  gathered  to- 
gether at  your  birth  this  time.  But  it  is  an  exact  re- 
production of  the  matter  in  your  astral  body  at  the 
end  of  your  last  astral  life.  Nevertheless  it  is  not  you ; 
and  you  must  ever  bear  this  in  mind  all  through  life, 
and  even  more  during  the  life  after  death,  for  then 
it  has  still  greater  power  to  deceive  you. 

But  you  may  think  that  by  thus  refusing  to  allow 
it  to  influence  you,  you  are  checking  its  evolution.  Not 
at  all.  You  are  doing  better  for  the  elemental  if  you 
control  the  lower  passions,  and  take  a  firm  stand  of 
your  own.  It  is  true  you  do  not  develope  a  very  low 
part  of  it ;  but  you  may  drop  the  lower  and  evolve  the 
higher.  An  animal  can  supply  the  lower  kinds  of  vi- 
brations even  better  than  you  can  yourself,  whereas 
none  but  man  can  evolve  the  higher  type  of  essence. 

After  the  death  of  the  physical  body  the  ordinary 
man,  who  has  never  heard  all  this,  finds  himself  when 
he  wakes  up  on  the  other  side  in  a  totally  unexpected 
condition  of  affairs,  and  is  generally  more  or  less  dis- 


THE  DESIRE  ELEMENTAL  263 

turbed  thereby.  Finally,  he  accepts  these  conditions 
which  he  does  not  understand,  thinking  them  necessary 
and  inevitable.  Some  no  doubt  are,  but  some  are  not, 
and  with  knowledge  the  latter  could  be  transcended. 

The  elemental  is  afraid,  because  it  knows  that  the 
death  of  the  physical  body  means  that  the  term  of  its 
separated  life  is  limited ;  it  knows  that  the  man's  astral 
death  will  more  or  less  quickly  follow,  and  with  it  the 
loss  to  it  of  vivid  and  intense  sensations.  Consequently 
it  adopts  the  best  plan  it  can  think  of  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  man's  astral  body.  It  evidently  knows 
enough  of  astral  physics  to  realize  that  the  coarsest 
matter  can  hold  together  longest,  and  best  stand  fric- 
tion. So  it  arranges  the  matter  in  rings,  the  coarsest 
on  the  outside.  And  in  so  doing  it  is  right,  from  its 
point  of  view.  During  physical  life  the  astral  body 
is  like  swirling,  boiling  water,  but  after  death  it  ar- 
ranges the  matter  in  a  series  of  graduated  sheaths, 
so  that  full  circulation  is  impossible. 

Now  there  are  no  sense  organs  in  the  astral  body. 
There  are  in  it  organs  corresponding  to  the  physical 
sense-organs,  but  you  do  not  see,  hear  and  smell  with 
them.  You  hear  and  see  all  over  the  surface  of  the 
body.  Each  sub-plane  has  its  own  matter;  and  it  is 
by  means  of  the  matter  of  that  sub-plane  in  your  body 
that  you  can  respond  to  its  vibrations.  Whatever  mat- 
ter is  on  the  outside  (or  surface)  of  your  body  re- 
sponds to  these  vibrations,  and  you  see  or  hear  by  it 
alone.  Consequently,  what  has  happened  is  this :  the 
elemental  has,  by  this  arrangement  of  the  matter  of 
your  body,  shut  you  up,  as  it  were,  in  a  box  of  astral 
matter,  which  enables  you  to  see  and  hear  things  of  the 
lowest  and  coarsest  plane  only.  If  you  object  to  being 
shut  up  in  this  way,  it  endeavours  to  make  you  be- 
lieve that  unless  you  do  thus  firmly  root  yourself  into 


264  THE  INNER  LIEE 

the  lower  matter  you  will  float  off,  and  lose  yourself 
in  a  nebulous  vagueness. 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  were  to  set  your  will 
to  oppose  it,  then  at  once  there  would  be  a  difference. 
The  particles  of  the  astral  body  would  be  kept  all  inter- 
mingled, as  in  life;  and  you  would,  in  consequence,  be 
free  of  all  the  sub-planes. 

The  final  struggle  with  it  takes  place  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  astral  life,  for  then  the  ego  endeavours  to 
draw  back  into  himself  all  that  he  put  down  into  in- 
carnation at  the  beginning  of  the  life  which  has  just 
closed — to  recover  as  it  were  the  principal  which  he 
has  invested,  plus  the  interest  of  the  experience  which 
has  been  gained  and  the  qualities  which  have  been  de- 
veloped during  that  life.  But  when  he  attempts  to 
do  this  he  is  met  with  determined  opposition  from  this 
desire-elemental,  which  he  himself  has  created  and 
fed. 

Though  it  can  hardly  be  described  as  intelligent,  it 
has  a  strong  instinct  of  self-preservation,  which  leads 
it  to  resist  with  all  the  force  at  its  command  the  ex- 
tinction which  threatens  it.  In  the  case  of  all  ordinary 
mortals  it  attains  a  certain  measure  of  success  in  its 
efforts,  for  much  of  the  mental  faculty  has  during  life 
been  governed  by  the  lower  desires  and  prostituted  to 
their  service,  or  in  other  words  the  lower  mind  has 
been  so  seriously  entangled  by  desire  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  it  to  be  entirely  freed.  The  result  of  the  strug- 
gle is  therefore  that  some  portion  of  the  mental  matter 
and  even  of  causal  matter  is  retained  in  the  astral  body 
after  the  ego  has  completely  broken  away  from  it. 
When  a  man  has  during  life  completely  conquered  his 
lower  desires  and  succeeded  in  absolutely  freeing  the 
lower  mind  from  desire,  there  is  practically  no  strug- 
gle, and  the  ego  reclaims  in  full  both  principal  and 


LOST  SOULS  265 

interest;  but  there  is  unfortunately  an  opposite  ex- 
treme when  he  is  able  to  reclaim  neither. 

So  our  business,  both  during  life  and  after  death, 
is  to  control  this  desire-elemental,  and  not  let  it  con- 
trol us.  Realize  that  you  are  a  god  in  the  making.  All 
the  power  and  force  of  the  universe  are  on  your  side. 
The  result  is  certain.  Range  yourself  on  the  side  of 
the  Law,  and  all  will  be  simplified. 

Absolute  control  of  passions  is  eminently  desirable, 
but  is  obtained  by  few.  You  have  to  keep  your  temper 
on  the  astral  plane.  You  see  many  dreadful  things, 
and  if  you  have  not  all  feelings  thoroughly  under  con- 
trol you  may  easily  do  something  for  which  you  will 
be  sorry.  Down  here  people  often  commit  casual  bru- 
tality and  think  nothing  of  it;  a  callous  schoolmaster, 
for  example,  beats  a  child  without  realizing  his  wick- 
edness; but  on  the  astral  plane  the  heinousness  of 
such  a  crime  is  at  once  obvious,  and  even  the  awful 
horrors  of  the  karma  which  it  entails  may  often  be 
seen.  On  the  astral  you  see  the  full  effects  of  even  an 
unkind  word.  Tremendous  and  violent  passions  may 
often  attract  low  kinds  of  beings,  who  enter  into  the 
thought-forms  and  enjoy  the  vibrations.  Such  ani- 
mated thought-forms  may  last  for  years,  and  even  pro- 
duce poltergeist  phenomena. 


Lost  Souls 

It  is  an  unspeakable  relief  to  be  set  free  by  the  com- 
monsense  of  Theosophical  teaching  from  the  awful 
nightmare  of  the  doctrine  of  eternal  damnation  which 
is  still  held  by  the  more  ignorant  among  the  Christians, 
who  do  not  understand  the  real  meaning  of  certain 
phrases  attributed  in  their  gospels  to  their  Founder. 


266  THE  INNER  LIFE 

But  some  of  our  students,  filled  with  glad  enthusiasm 
by  the  glorious  discovery  that  every  unit  must  finally 
attain  perfection,  find  their  joy  somewhat  damped  by 
gruesome  hints  that,  after  all,  there  are  conditions  un- 
der which  a  soul  may  be  lost,  and  they  begin  to  wonder 
whether  the  reign  of  divine  law  is  really  universal,  or 
whether  there  is  not  some  method  by  which  man  can 
contrive  to  escape  from  the  dominion  of  the  Logos  and 
destroy  himself.  Let  such  doubters  take  comfort ;  the 
Will  of  the  Logos  is  infinitely  stronger  than  any  hu- 
man will,  and  not  even  the  utmost  exertion  of  perverse 
ingenuity  can  possibly  prevail  against  Him. 

It  is  true  that  He  allows  man  to  use  his  free-will, 
but  only  within  certain  well-defined  limits ;  if  the  man 
uses  that  will  well,  those  limits  are  quickly  widened, 
and  more  and  more  power  over  his  own  destiny  is  given 
to  him;  but  if  he  uses  that  will  for  evil,  he  thereby 
increases  his  limitations,  so  that  while  his  power  for 
good  is  practically  unbounded,  because  it  has  in  it  the 
potentiality  of  infinite  growth,  his  power  for  evil  is 
rigidly  restricted.  And  this  not  because  of  any  in- 
equality in  the  incidence  of  the  law,  but  because  in  the 
one  case  he  exerts  his  will  in  the  same  direction  as  that 
of  the  Logos,  and  so  is  swimming  with  the  evolutionary 
tide,  while  in  the  other  he  is  struggling  against  it. 

The  term  "lost  souls"  is  not  well  chosen,  for  it  is  al- 
most certain  to  be  misunderstood,  and  taken  to  imply 
much  more  than  it  really  means.  In  every-day  par- 
lance, the  word  "soul"  is  used  with  exasperating  vague- 
ness, but  on  the  whole  it  is  generally  supposed  to  de- 
note the  subtler  and  more  permanent  part  of  man,  so 
that  to  the  man  in  the  street  to  lose  one's  soul  means 
to  lose  oneself,  to  be  lost  altogether.  That  is  precisely 
what  can  never  happen;  therefore  the  expression  is 
misleading,  and  a  clear  statement  of  the  facts  which 


LOST  SOULS  26? 

it  somewhat  inaccurately  labels  may  be  of  use  to  stu- 
dents. Of  such  facts  there  seem  to  be  three  classes; 
let  us  consider  them  one  by  one. 

1.  Those  who  will  drop  out  of  this  evolution  in  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  round.  This  dropping  out  is  pre- 
cisely the  aeonian  (not  eternal)  condemnation  of  which 
the  Christ  spoke  as  a  very  real  danger  for  some  of  His 
unawakened  hearers — the  condemnation  meaning 
merely  the  decision  that  they  are  incapable  as  yet  of 
the  higher  progress,  but  not  implying  blame  except  in 
cases  where  opportunities  have  been  neglected.  Theos- 
ophy  teaches  us  that  men  are  all  brothers,  but  not 
that  they  are  all  equal.  There  are  immense  differences 
between  them ;  they  have  entered  the  human  evolution 
at  various  periods,  so  that  some  are  much  older  souls 
than  others,  and  they  stand  at  very  different  levels  on 
the  ladder  of  development.  The  older  souls  naturally 
learn  much  more  rapidly  than  the  younger,  and  so  the 
distance  between  them  steadily  increases,  and  event- 
ually a  point  is  reached  where  the  conditions  necessary 
for  the  one  type  are  entirely  unsuitable  for  the  other. 

We  may  obtain  a  useful  working  analogy  by  thinking 
of  the  children  in  a  class  at  school.  The  teacher  of  the 
class  has  a  year's  work  before  him,  to  prepare  his  boys 
for  a  certain  examination.  He  parcels  out  the  work — « 
so  much  for  the  first  month,  so  much  for  the  second, 
and  so  on,  beginning  of  course  with  what  is  easiest  and 
leading  gradually  up  to  what  is  more  difficult.  But  the 
boys  are  of  various  ages  and  capacities;  some  learn 
rapidly  and  are  in  advance  of  the  average,  while  some 
lag  behind.  New  boys,  too,  are  constantly  coming  into 
his  class,  some  of  them  barely  up  to  its  level.  When 
half  the  year  has  run  its  course,  he  resolutely  closes  the 
the  list  for  admissions,  and  declines  to  receive  any 
more  new  boys. 


268  THE  INNER  LIFE 

That  took  place  for  us  at  the  middle  point  of  this 
fourth  round,  after  which  the  door  was  shut  for  pas- 
sage from  the  animal  kingdom  into  the  human,  save  for 
a  few  exceptional  cases,  which  belong,  as  it  were,  to 
the  future ;  just  as  you  have  a  few  men  attaining  adept- 
ship,  who  are  not  belated  remnants  of  the  moon's 
adepts,  but  people  in  advance  of  the  rest  of  humanity. 
In  the  same  way  there  are  a  few  animals  at  the  stage 
of  individualization,  which  the  generality  are  expected 
to  reach  at  the  end  of  the  seventh  round.  On  the  next 
planet  an  arrangement  will  be  made  by  which  these 
exceptions  will  have  the  opportunity  of  taking  primitive 
human  bodies. 

A  little  later  the  teacher  can  already  clearly  foresee 
that  some  of  his  boys  will  certainly  pass  the  examina- 
tion, that  the  chance  of  others  is  doubtful,  and  that 
there  are  yet  others  who  are  sure  to  fail.  It  would  be 
quite  reasonable  if  he  should  say  to  these  last : 

"We  have  now  reached  a  stage  when  the  further 
work  of  this  class  is  useless  for  you.  You  cannot  pos- 
sibly by  any  effort  attain  the  necessary  standard  in  time 
for  the  examination ;  the  more  advanced  teaching  which 
must  now  be  given  to  the  others  would  be  entirely  un- 
suited  for  you,  and  as  you  could  not  understand  it  you 
would  be  not  only  wasting  your  own  time  but  would 
be  a  hindrance  to  the  rest  of  the  class.  It  will  there- 
fore be  better  for  you  at  once  to  transfer  yourselves 
to  the  next  class  below  this,  perfect  yourselves  there 
in  the  preliminary  lessons  which  you  have  not  yet 
thoroughly  learned,  and  come  back  to  this  level  with 
next  year's  class,  when  you  will  be  sure  to  pass  with 
credit." 

That  is  exactly  what  will  be  done  in  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  round.  Those  who  cannot  by  any  effort  reach 
the  prescribed  goal  in  the  time  which  remains  will  be 


LOST  SOULS  269 

put  back  into  a  lower  class,  and  if  the  class-room  doors 
are  not  yet  open  they  will  wait  in  peace  and  happiness 
until  the  appointed  time.  They  may  be  described  as  lost 
to  us,  lost  to  this  particular  little  wave  of  evolution  to 
which  we  belong ;  they  are  no  longer  "men  of  our  year" 
as  we  say  at  College.  But  they  will  very  certainly  be 
"men  of  the  next  year" — even  leading  men  in  it,  be- 
cause of  the  work  that  they  have  already  done  and  the 
experience  that  they  have  already  had. 

Most  of  these  people  fail  because  they  are  too  young 
for  the  class,  although  they  were  too  old  to  be  put  in 
the  first  place  into  the  class  below.  They  have  had  the 
advantage  of  going  through  the  first  half  of  the  year's 
work,  and  they  will  therefore  take  it  up  again  next  time 
readily  and  easily,  and  will  be  able  to  help  their  more 
backward  fellow-pupils  who  have  not  had  their  ad- 
vantages. For  those  who  are  too  young  for  the  work 
there  is  no  blame  in  failure. 

But  there  is  another  large  class  who  might  succeed 
by  determined  effort,  but  fail  for  want  of  that  effort. 
These  exactly  correspond  to  the  boy  who  drops  behind 
his  class  not  because  he  is  too  young,  but  because  he 
is  too  lazy  to  do  his  work.  His  fate  is  the  same  as  that 
of  the  others,  but  it  is  obvious  that  while  they  were 
blameless  because  they  did  their  best,  he  is  blame- 
worthy precisely  because  he  did  not  do  his ;  so  he  will 
carry  with  him  a  legacy  of  evil  karma  from  which  they 
are  free.  It  is  to  men  of  that  class  that  the  Christ's 
exhortations  were  addressed — men  who  had  the  oppor- 
tunity and  ability  to  succeed,  but  were  not  making  the 
necessary  effort. 

It  is  of  these  that  Madame  Blavatsky  speaks  in  such 
vigorous  terms  as  "useless  drones  who  refuse  to  be- 
come co-workers  with  Nature,  and  who  perish  by  mil- 
lions during  the  manvantaric  life-cycle."     {Secret  Doc- 


270  THE  INNER  LIFE 

trine,  iii,  526.)  But  note  that  this  "perishing"  is  mere- 
ly from  this  "manvantaric  life-cycle,"  and  that  it  means 
for  them  delay  only,  and  not  total  extinction.  Delay  is 
the  worst  that  can  happen  to  people  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  evolution.  Such  a  delay  is  undoubtedly  most 
serious,  but,  bad  though  it  be,  it  is  the  best  that  can  be 
done  under  the  circumstances.  If  either  through  youth, 
or  through  laziness  and  perversity,  these  people  have 
failed,  it  is  clear  that  they  need  more  training,  and  this 
training  they  must  have.  Obviously  that  is  best  for 
them,  even  though  it  means  many  lives — lives,  many  of 
which  may  be  dreary,  and  may  even  contain  much  suf- 
fering. Still,  they  must  go  through  to  the  end,  because 
that  is  the  only  way  by  which  they  can  attain  the  level 
which  the  more  advanced  races  have  already  reached 
through  similar  long-continued  evolution. 

It  was  with  the  object  of  saving  as  many  people  as 
possible  from  that  additional  suffering  that  the  Christ 
said  to  His  disciples :  "Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature;  he  that  believeth 
and  is  baptised  shall  be  saved,  but  he  that  believeth  not 
shall  be  damned."  For  baptism  and  its  corresponding 
rites  in  other  religions  are  the  sign  of  the  dedication  of 
the  life  to  the  service  of  the  Brotherhood,  and  the  man 
who  is  able  to  grasp  the  truth,  and  consequently  sets 
his  face  in  the  right  direction,  will  certainly  be  among 
the  "saved"  or  "safe,"  who  escape  the  condemnation  in 
the  fifth  round ;  while  those  who  do  not  take  the  trouble 
to  see  the  truth  and  follow  it  will  assuredly  fall  under 
that  condemnation.  But  remember  always  that  the 
"damnation"  means  only  rejection  from  this  "aeon"  or 
chain  of  worlds,  a  throwing  back  into  the  next  of  the 
successive  life-waves.  "Lost  souls,"  if  you  will;  lost 
to  us,  perhaps,  but  not  to  the  Logos  ;  so  they  would  be 
better  described  as  temporarily  laid  aside.    Of  course  it 


LOST  SOULS  271 

must  not  be  supposed  that  the  "belief"  which  saves 
them  is  the  knowledge  of  Theosophy ;  it  does  not  matter 
in  the  least  what  their  religion  is,  so  long  as  they  are 
aiming  at  the  spiritual  life,  so  long  as  they  have  def- 
initely ranged  themselves  on  the  side  of  good  as  against 
evil,  and  are  working  unselfishly  onward  and  upward. 

2.  Cases  in  which  the  personality  has  been  so  much 
emphasized  that  the  ego  is  almost  shut  out  from  it.  Of 
these  there  are  two  varieties — those  who  live  only  in 
their  passions,  and  those  who  live  only  in  their  minds ; 
and  as  both  types  are  by  no  means  uncommon  it  is 
worth  while  to  try  to  understand  exactly  what  happens 
to  them. 

We  often  speak  of  the  ego  as  putting  himself  down 
into  the  matter  of  the  lower  planes,  yet  many  students 
fail  to  realize  that  this  is  not  a  mere  figure  of  speech, 
but  has  a  very  definite  and  very  material  side  to  it.  The 
ego  dwells  in  a  causal  body,  and  when  he  takes  upon 
himself  in  addition  a  mental  and  an  astral  body,  the 
operation  involves  the  actual  entangling  of  a  portion  of 
the  matter  of  his  causal  body  with  matter  of  those  lower 
astral  and  mental  types.  We  may  regard  this  "putting 
down"  as  a  kind  of  investment  made  by  the  ego.  As  in 
all  investments,  so  in  this ;  he  hopes  to  get  back  more 
than  he  puts  out,  but  there  is  a  risk  of  disappointment 
— a  possibility  that  he  may  lose  something  of  what  he 
invests,  or  under  very  exceptional  circumstances  there 
may  even  be  a  total  loss  which  leaves  him,  not  indeed 
absolutely  bankrupt,  but  without  available  capital. 

Let  us  consider  the  elaboration  of  this  analogy.  The 
ego  possesses  in  his  causal  body  matter  of  three  levels — 
the  first,  second  and  third  sub-planes  of  the  mental ; 
but  for  the  enormous  majority  of  mankind  there  is  as 
yet  no  activity  beyond  the  lowest  of  these  three  types, 
and  even  that  is  usually  very  partial.    It  is  therefore 


272  THE  INNER  LIFE 

only  some  of  this  lowest  type  of  causal  matter  that  can 
be  put  down  to  lower  levels,  and  only  a  small  fraction 
even  of  that  part  can  be  entangled  with  mental  and 
astral  matter. 

The  ego's  control  over  what  is  put  down  is  very  weak 
and  imperfect,  because  he  is  still  half  asleep.  But  as 
his  physical  body  grows  up  his  astral  and  mental  bodies 
are  also  developed,  and  the  causal  matter  entangled 
with  them  is  awakened  by  the  vigorous  vibrations 
which  reach  it  through  them.  This  fraction  of  a  frac- 
tion which  is  fully  entangled  gives  life  and  vigor  and  a 
sense  of  individuality  to  these  vehicles,  and  they  in  turn 
react  strongly  upon  it  and  arouse  it  to  a  keen  realiza- 
tion of  life.  This  keen  realization  of  life  is  exactly 
what  it  needs,  the  very  object  for  which  it  is  put  down ; 
and  it  is  the  longing  for  this  keen  realization  when  it 
has  it  not  which  is  spoken  of  as  trishna  (the  thirst  for 
manifested  life,  the  desire  to  feel  oneself  really  vividly 
alive),  the  force  which  draws  the  ego  down  again  into 
reincarnation. 

But  just  because  this  small  fraction  has  had  these 
experiences,  and  is  therefore  so  much  more  awake  than 
the  rest  of  the  ego,  it  may  often  be  so  far  intensified  as 
to  think  itself  the  whole,  and  forget  for  the  time  its  re- 
lation to  "its  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  It  may  tem- 
porarily identify  itself  with  the  matter  through  which 
it  should  be  working,  and  may  resist  the  influence  of 
that  other  portion  which  has  been  put  down,  but  is  not 
entangled — that  which  forms  the  link  with  the  great 
mass  of  the  ego  on  his  own  plane. 

In  order  to  understand  this  matter  fully  we  must 
think  of  that  portion  of  the  ego  which  is  awakened  on 
the  third  sub-plane  of  the  mental  (remembering  always 
how  small  a  fraction  even  that  is  of  the  whole)  as  itself 
divided  into  three  parts :     (a)  that  which  remains  on 


LOST  SOULS  273 

its  own  plane ;  (b)  that  which  is  put  down,  but  remains 
unentangled  in  lower  matter;  and  (c)  that  which  is 
thoroughly  entangled  with  lower  matter  and  receives 
vibrations  from  it.  These  are  arranged  in  a  descending 
scale,  for  just  as  (a)  is  a  very  small  part  of  the  real  ego, 
so  (b)  is  but  a  small  part  of  (a),  and  (c)  in  turn  a 
small  part  of  (b).  The  second  acts  as  a  link  between 
the  first  and  third ;  we  may  symbolize  (a)  as  the  body, 

(b)  as  the  arm  stretched  out,  and  (c)  as  the  hand  which 
grasps,  or  perhaps  rather  the  tips  of  the  fingers  which 
are  dipped  into  matter. 

We  have  here  a  very  delicately  balanced  arrange- 
ment, which  may  be  affected  in  various  ways.  The  in- 
tention is  that  the  hand  (c)  should  grasp  firmly  and 
guide  the  matter  with  which  it  is  entangled,  being  fully 
directed  all  the  time  by  the  body  (a)  through  the  arm 
(b).  Under  favourable  circumstances  additional 
strength,  and  even  additional  matter,  may  be  poured 
from  (a)  through  (6)  into  (c),  so  that  the  control  may 
become  more  and  more  perfect,  (c)  may  grow  in  size 
as  well  as  strength,  and  the  more  it  does  so  the  better, 
so  long  as  the  communication  through  (b)  is  kept  open 
freely  and  (a)  retains  control.  For  the  very  entangle- 
ment of  the  causal  matter  which  constitutes  (c)  awak- 
ens it  to  a  keen  activity  and  an  accuracy  of  response  to 
fine  shades  of  vibration  which  it  could  gain  in  no  other 
way,  and  this,  when  transmitted  through  (b)  to  (a), 
means  the  development  of  the  ego. 

Unfortunately  the  course  of  events  does  not  always 
follow  the  ideal  plan  of  working  above  indicated.  When 
the  control  of  (a)  is  feeble,  it  sometimes  happens  that 

(c)  becomes  so  thoroughly  immeshed  in  lower  matter 
that  (as  I  have  said)  it  actually  identifies  itself  with  it, 
forgets  for  the  time  its  high  estate,  and  thinks  of  itself 
as  the  whole  ego.    If  the  matter  be  of  the  lower  mental 


274  THE  INNER  LIFE 

plane,  we  shall  then  have  down  here  on  the  physical 
plane  a  man  who  is  wholly  materialistic.  He  may  be 
keenly  intellectual  perhaps,  but  not  spiritual;  he  may 
very  likely  be  intolerant  of  spirituality  and  quite  un- 
able to  comprehend  or  appreciate  it.  He  may  probably 
call  himself  practical,  matter-of-fact,  unsentimental, 
while  in  reality  he  is  hard  as  the  nether  millstone,  and 
because  of  that  hardness  his  life  is  a  failure,  and  he  is 
making  no  progress. 

If  the  matter  in  which  he  is  so  fatally  entangled  be 
astral,  he  will  be  (on  the  physical  plane)  one  who 
thinks  only  of  his  own  gratification,  who  is  absolutely 
ruthless  when  in  pursuit  of  some  object  which  he 
strongly  desires,  a  man  utterly  unprincipled  and  of 
brutal  selfishness.  Such  a  man  lives  in  his  passions, 
just  as  the  man  immeshed  in  mental  matter  lives  in  his 
mind.  Cases  such  as  these  have  been  spoken  of  in  our 
literature  as  "lost  souls,"  though  not  irretrievably  lost. 
Madame  Blavatsky  says  of  them  : 

"There  is,  however,  still  hope  for  a  person  who  has 
lost  his  Higher  Soul  through  his  vices,  while  he  is  yet  in 
the  body.  He  may  still  be  redeemed  and  made  to  turn 
on  his  material  nature.  For  either  an  intense  feeling 
of  repentance,  or  one  single  earnest  appeal  to  the  Ego 
that  has  fled,  or  best  of  all,  an  active  effort  to  amend 
one's  ways,  may  bring  the  Higher  Ego  back  again. 
The  thread  of  connection  is  not  altogether  broken." 
(Secret  Doctrine,  iii.  527.) 

These  are  cases  in  which  (c)  has  asserted  itself 
against  (b),  and  pressed  it  back  towards  (a)  ;  the  arm 
has  become  attenuated  and  almost  paralyzed,  its 
strength  and  substance  being  withdrawn  into  the  body, 
while  the  hand  has  set  up  for  itself,  and  makes  on  its 
own  account  jerky  and  spasmodic  movements  which  are 
not  controlled  by  the  brain.    If  the  separation  could  be- 


LOST  SOULS  275 

come  perfect  it  would  correspond  to  an  amputation  at 
the  wrist,  but  this  very  rarely  takes  place  during  phys- 
ical existence,  though  only  so  much  of  communication 
remains  as  is  necessary  to  keep  the  personality  alive. 

As  Madame  Blavatsky  says,  such  a  case  is  not  entire- 
ly hopeless,  for  even  at  the  last  moment  fresh  life  may 
be  poured  through  that  paralyzed  arm  if  a  sufficiently 
strong  effort  be  made,  and  thus  the  ego  may  be  enabled 
to  recover  some  proportion  of  (c),  as  he  has  already 
recovered  most  of  (b).  Nevertheless,  such  a  life  has 
been  wasted,  for  even  if  the  man  just  contrives  to  es- 
cape serious  loss,  at  any  rate  nothing  has  been  gained, 
and  much  time  has  been  frittered  away. 

It  may  well  be  thought  incredible  that  such  men  as 
I  have  described  could  in  any  case  escape  serious  loss ; 
but,  fortunately  for  our  possibilities  of  progress,  the 
laws  under  which  we  live  are  such  that  to  achieve  a 
really  serious  loss  is  no  easy  matter.  The  reason  for 
that  may  perhaps  be  made  clear  by  the  following  con- 
siderations. 

All  the  activities  that  we  call  evil,  whether  they  are 
working  as  selfish  thoughts  on  the  mental  plane  or  as 
selfish  emotions  on  the  astral  plane,  invariably  show 
themselves  as  vibrations  of  the  coarser  matter  of  those 
planes,  belonging  to  their  lower  levels.  On  the  other 
hand,  every  good  and  unselfish  thought  or  emotion  sets 
in  vibration  some  of  the  higher  types  of  matter  on  its 
plane ;  and  because  that  finer  matter  is  far  more  easily 
moved,  any  given  amount  of  force  spent  in  good  thought 
or  feeling  produces  perhaps  a  hundred  times  as  much 
result  as  precisely  the  same  amount  of  force  sent  out 
into  the  coarser  matter.  If  this  were  not  so,  it  is  ob- 
vious that  the  ordinary  man  could  never  make  any 
progress  at  all. 

We  shall  probably  do  the  quite  undeveloped  man  of 


276  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  world  no  injustice  if  we  assume  that  ninety  per 
cent  of  his  thought  and  feeling  is  self-centred,  even  if 
not  actually  selfish;  if  ten  per  cent  of  it  is  spiritual 
and  unselfish,  he  must  already  be  rising  somewhat 
above  the  average.  Clearly  if  these  proportions  pro- 
duced corresponding  results,  the  vast  majority  of  hu- 
manity would  take  nine  steps  backwards  for  every  one 
forwards,  and  we  should  have  a  retrogression  so  rapid 
that  a  few  incarnations  would  deposit  us  in  the  animal 
kingdom  out  of  which  we  evolved.  Happily  for  us  the 
effect  of  ten  per  cent  of  force  directed  to  good  ends 
enormously  outweighs  that  of  ninety  per  cent  devoted 
to  selfish  purposes,  and  so  on  the  whole  such  a  man 
makes  an  appreciable  advance  from  life  to  life.  A  man 
who  has  even  one  per  cent  of  good  to  show  makes  a 
slight  advance,  so  it  will  be  readily  understood  that  a 
man  whose  account  balances  exactly,  so  that  there  is 
neither  advance  nor  retrogression,  must  have  been  liv- 
ing a  distinctly  evil  life ;  while  to  obtain  an  actual  de- 
scent in  evolution  a  person  must  be  an  unusually  con- 
sistent villain. 

Thanks  to  this  beneficent  law  the  world  is  steadily 
but  slowly  evolving,  even  though  we  see  round  us  all 
the  while  so  much  that  is  undesirable ;  and  even  such 
men  as  I  have  described  may  not  after  all  fall  very  far. 
What  they  have  lost  is  rather  time  and  opportunity 
than  actual  position  in  evolution ;  but  to  lose  time  and 
opportunity  means  always  additional  suffering. 

To  see  what  they  have  lost  and  what  they  have  failed 
to  do,  let  us  revert  for  a  moment  to  the  analogy  of  in- 
vestment. The  ego  expects  to  recover  that  which  he 
puts  out  to  interest  in  lower  matter — the  block  that  we 
have  called  (c) — and  he  expects  it  to  be  improved  both 
in  quality  and  quantity.  Its  quality  is  better  because  it 
has  become  much  more  awake,  and  capable  of  instant 


LOST  SOULS  277 

and  accurate  response  to  a  far  more  varied  gamut  of 
vibrations  than  before — a  capacity  which  (c)  when 
reabsorbed  necessarily  communicates  to  (a),  though 
of  course  the  store  of  energy  which  made  such  a  pow- 
erful wave  in  (c)  creates  only  a  ripple  when  distributed 
throughout  the  substance  of  (a).  (It  should  be  noted 
here  that  although  the  vehicles,  containing  as  they  do 
the  grosser  as  well  as  the  finer  types  of  the  matter  of 
their  respective  planes,  can  respond  to  and  express  evil 
thoughts  and  emotions,  and  although  their  excitement 
under  such  vibrations  can  produce  perturbation  in  the 
entangled  causal  matter  (c),  it  is  quite  impossible  for 
that  matter  (c)  to  reproduce  those  vibrations  or  to 
communicate  them  to  (a)  or  (b) ,  simply  because  mat- 
ter of  the  three  higher  mental  levels  can  no  more  vibrate 
at  the  rate  of  the  lowest  plane  than  the  string  of  a  vio- 
lin tuned  to  a  certain  pitch  can  be  made  to  produce  a 
note  lower  than  that  pitch.) 

(c)  should  also  be  increased  in  quantity,  because  the 
causal  body,  like  all  other  vehicles,  is  constantly  chang- 
ing its  matter,  and  when  special  exercise  is  given  to  a 
certain  part  of  it,  that  part  grows  in  size  and  becomes 
stronger,  precisely  as  a  physical  muscle  does  when  it  is 
used.  Every  earth-life  is  an  opportunity  carefully  cal- 
culated for  such  development  in  quality  and  quantity 
as  is  most  needed  by  the  ego ;  a  failure  to  use  that  op- 
portunity means  the  trouble  and  delay  of  another  simi- 
lar incarnation,  its  sufferings  probably  aggravated  by 
the  additional  bad  karma  incurred. 

Against  the  increment  which  the  ego  has  a  right  to 
expect  from  each  incarnation  we  must  offset  a  certain 
amount  of  loss  which  in  the  earlier  stages  is  scarcely 
avoidable.  In  order  to  be  effective  the  entanglement 
with  lower  matter  must  be  very  intimate,  and  it  is 
found  that  when  that  is  so,  it  is  scarcely  ever  possible 


278  THE  INNER  LIFE 

to  recover  every  particle,  especially  from  the  connection 
with  the  astral  vehicle.  When  the  time  comes  for  sepa- 
ration from  that  it  is  almost  always  a  shade  and  not  a 
mere  shell  that  is  left  behind  on  the  astral  plane ;  and 
that  very  distinction  means  that  something  of  the  cau- 
sal material  is  lost.  Except  in  the  case  of  an  unusu- 
ally bad  life,  however,  this  amount  should  be  much 
smaller  than  that  gained  by  growth,  and  so  there  should 
be  on  the  whole  a  profit  on  the  transaction.  With  such 
men  as  I  have  described — men  living  entirely  in  their 
passions  or  their  minds — there  would  be  no  gain  either 
in  quality  or  quantity,  since  the  vibrations  would  not 
be  such  as  could  be  stored  in  the  causal  body;  and  on 
the  other  hand,  as  the  entanglement  had  been  so  strong, 
there  would  certainly  be  considerable  loss  when  the 
separation  took  place. 

We  must  not  allow  the  analogy  of  the  arm  and  hand 
to  mislead  us  in  thinking  of  (b)  and  (c)  as  permanent 
appanages  of  the  ego.  During  a  life-period  they  may 
be  considered  as  separate,  but  at  the  end  of  each  life- 
period  they  withdraw  into  (a),  and  the  result  of  their 
experience  is  distributed,  as  it  were,  through  the  whole 
of  its  substance ;  so  that  when  the  time  comes  for  the 
ego  to  put  part  of  himself  out  into  incarnation  once 
more,  he  does  not  stretch  out  again  the  old  (b)  and 
(c),  for  they  have  been  absorbed  in  him  and  become 
part  of  him,  just  as  a  cupful  of  water  emptied  into  a 
bucket  becomes  part  of  the  water  in  the  bucket  and 
cannot  be  separated  from  it. 

Any  coloring  matter  which  was  present  in  the  cup 
is  distributed  (though  in  paler  tint)  through  the  whole 
bucketful  of  water;  and  that  coloring  matter  may  be 
taken  as  symbolizing  the  qualities  developed  by  expe- 
rience. Just  as  it  would  be  impossible  to  take  out  again 
from  the  bucket  exactly  the  same  cupful  of  water,  so 


LOST  SOULS  279 

the  ego  cannot  again  put  out  the  same  (b)  and  (c). 
The  plan  is  one  to  which  he  was  accustomed  before  he 
became  a  separate  ego  at  all,  for  it  is  identical  with 
that  pursued  by  the  group-soul,  except  that  the  latter 
puts  down  many  tentacles  simultaneously,  while  the 
ego  puts  forth  only  one  at  a  time.  Therefore  the  per- 
sonality in  each  new  incarnation  is  a  different  one, 
though  the  ego  behind  it  remains  the  same. 

3.  Cases  in  which  the  personality  captures  the  part 
of  the  ego  which  is  put  down,  and  actually  breaks  away 
are  happily  excessively  rare,  but  they  have  happened, 
and  they  represent  the  most  appalling  catastrophe 
that  can  occur  to  the  ego  concerned.  This  time  (c), 
instead  of  repelling  (b)  and  driving  it  gradually  back 
into  (a),  by  degrees  absorbs  (b)  and  detaches  it  from 
(a).  This  can  only  be  accomplished  by  determined 
persistence  in  deliberate  evil — black  magic,  in  short. 
Reverting  to  our  former  analogies,  this  is  equivalent 
to  amputation  at  the  shoulder,  or  to  the  loss  by  the  ego 
of  nearly  all  his  available  capital.  Fortunately  for 
him  he  cannot  lose  everything,  because  (b)  and  (c) . 
together  are  only  a  small  proportion  of  (a) ,  and  behind 
(a)  is  the  great  undeveloped  portion  of  the  ego  on  the 
first  and  second  mental  sub-planes.  Mercifully  a  man, 
however  incredibly  foolish  or  wicked,  cannot  completely 
wreck  himself,  for  he  cannot  bring  that  higher  part  of 
the  causal  body  into  activity  until  he  has  reached  a  level 
at  which  such  evil  is  unthinkable. 

Now  that  the  central  point  of  our  immersion  in  mat- 
ter is  passed,  the  whole  force  of  the  universe  is  press- 
ing upwards  towards  unity,  and  the  man  who  is  willing 
to  make  all  his  life  an  intelligent  co-operation  with  na- 
ture gains  as  part  of  his  reward  an  ever-increasing 
perception  of  the  reality  of  this  unity.  But  on  the  other 
hand  it  is  obvious  that  men  may  set  themselves  in  op- 


280  THE  INNER  LIFE 

position  to  nature  and,  instead  of  working  unselfishly 
for  the  good  of  all,  may  debase  every  faculty  they  pos- 
sess for  purely  selfish  ends ;  and  of  them  also,  as  of  the 
others,  the  old  saying  is  true,  "Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
they  have  their  reward."  They  spend  their  lives  in 
striving  for  separateness,  and  for  a  long  time  they  at- 
tain it,  and  it  is  said  that  that  sensation  of  being  utter- 
ly alone  in  space  is  the  most  awful  fate  that  can  ever 
befall  the  sons  of  men. 

This  extraordinary  development  of  selfishness  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  black  magician,  and  it  is  among 
their  ranks  only  that  men  can  be  found  who  are  in  dan- 
ger of  this  terrible  fate.  Many  and  loathsome  are  their 
varieties,  but  they  may  all  be  classed  in  one  or  other  of 
two  great  divisions.  They  both  use  such  occult  arts  as 
they  possess  for  purely  selfish  purposes,  but  these 
purposes  differ. 

In  the  commoner  and  less  formidable  type  the  object 
pursued  is  the  gratification  of  sensual  desire  of  some 
sort,  and  naturally  the  result  of  a  life  devoted  to  noth- 
ing but  that  is  to  centre  the  man's  energy  in  the  desire- 
body  ;  so  that  if  the  man  who  works  on  these  lines  has 
succeeded  in  killing  out  from  himself  every  unselfish 
or  affectionate  feeling,  every  spark  of  higher  impulse, 
naturally  nothing  is  left  but  a  remorseless,  ruthless 
monster  of  lust,  who  finds  himself  after  death  neither 
able  nor  desirous  to  rise  above  the  lowest  sub-division 
of  the  astral  plane.  The  whole  of  such  mind  as  he  has 
is  absolutely  in  the  grip  of  desire,  and  when  the  strug- 
gle takes  place  the  ego  can  recover  none  of  it,  and  finds 
himself  seriously  weakened  in  consequence. 

By  his  carelessness  in  permitting  this  he  has  for  the 
time  cut  himself  off  from  the  current  of  evolution,  from 
the  mighty  wave  of  the  life  of  the  Logos,  and  so,  until 
he  can  return  to  incarnation,  he  stands  (what  appears 


LOST  SOULS  281 

to  him  to  be)  outside  that  life  in  the  condition  of  avichi, 
the  waveless.  Even  when  he  does  return  to  incarna- 
tion it  cannot  be  among  those  whom  he  has  known  be- 
fore, for  he  has  not  enough  available  capital  left  to 
provide  ensoulment  for  a  mind  and  body  at  his  previous 
level.  He  must  now  be  content  to  occupy  vehicles  of  a 
far  less  evolved  type,  belonging  to  some  earlier  race; 
so  that  he  has  thrown  himself  far  back  in  evolution 
and  must  climb  over  again  many  rungs  of  the  ladder. 

He  will  probably  be  born  as  a  savage,  but  will  most 
likely  be  a  chief  among  them,  as  he  will  still  have  some 
intellect.  It  has  been  said  that  he  may  even  throw  him- 
self so  far  back  that  he  may  be  unable  to  find  upon  the 
world  in  its  present  condition  any  type  of  human  body 
low  enough  for  the  manifestation  which  he  now  re- 
quires, so  that  he  may  even  be  incapacitated  from  tak- 
ing any  further  part  in  this  scheme  of  evolution,  and 
may  therefore  have  to  wait  in  a  kind  of  condition  of 
suspended  animation  for  the  commencement  of  an- 
other. 

Meanwhile  what  of  the  amputated  personality?  It 
is  no  longer  a  permanent  evolving  entity,  but  it  remains 
full  of  vigorous  and  wholly  evil  life,  entirely  without 
remorse  or  responsibility.  As  the  fate  before  it  is  dis- 
integration amidst  the  unpleasant  surroundings  of 
what  is  called  the  "eighth  sphere,"  it  naturally  tries  to 
maintain  some  sort  of  existence  on  the  physical  plane 
as  long  as  possible.  Vampirism  of  some  kind  is  its  sole 
means  of  prolonging  its  baneful  existence,  and  when 
that  fails  it  has  been  known  to  seize  upon  any  available 
body,  driving  out  the  lawful  owner.  The  body  chosen 
might  very  probably  be  that  of  a  child,  both  because  it 
might  be  expected  to  last  longer  and  because  an  ego 
which  had  not  yet  really  taken  hold  could  be  more  easily 
dispossessed.    In  spite  of  its  frenzied  efforts  its  power 


282  THE  INNER  LIFE 

seems  soon  to  fail,  and  I  believe  there  is  no  instance  on 
record  of  its  successfully  stealing  a  second  body  after 
its  first  theft  is  worn  out.  The  creature  is  a  demon 
of  the  most  terrible  type — a  monster  for  which  there  is 
no  permanent  place  in  the  scheme  of  evolution  to  which 
we  belong. 

Its  natural  tendency  therefore  is  to  drift  out  of  this 
evolution,  and  to  be  drawn  by  the  irresistible  force  of 
law  into  that  astral  cesspool  which  in  earlier  Theosoph- 
ical  writings  was  called  the  eighth  sphere,  because  what 
passes  into  it  stands  outside  the  ring  of  seven  worlds, 
and  cannot  return  into  their  evolution.  There,  sur- 
rounded by  loathsome  relics  of  all  of  the  concentrated 
vileness  of  the  ages  that  are  past,  burning  ever  with  de- 
sire, yet  without  possibility  of  satisfaction,  this  mon- 
strosity slowly  decays,  its  mental  and  causal  matter  be- 
ing thus  at  last  set  free — never  indeed  to  rejoin  the  ego 
from  which  it  has  torn  itself,  but  to  be  distributed 
among  the  other  matter  of  the  plane  to  enter  gradually 
into  fresh  combinations,  and  so  put  to  better  uses.  It 
is  consoling  to  know  that  such  entities  are  so  rare  as  to 
be  practically  unknown,  and  that  they  have  the  power 
to  seize  only  those  who  have  in  their  nature  pronounced 
defects  of  kindred  type. 

But  there  is  another  type  of  the  black  magician,  in 
outward  appearance  more  respectable,  yet  really  even 
more  dangerous,  because  more  powerful.  This  is  the 
man  who  instead  of  giving  himself  up  altogether  to 
sensuality  of  one  kind  or  another,  sets  before  himself 
the  goal  of  a  more  refined  but  not  less  unscrupulous 
selfishness.  His  object  is  the  acquisition  of  an  occult 
power  higher  and  wider  indeed,  but  to  be  used  always 
for  his  own  gratification  and  advancement,  to  further 
his  own  ambition  or  satisfy  his  own  revenge. 

In  order  to  gain  this  he  adopts  the  most  rigid  asceti- 


LOST  SOULS  283 

cism  as  regards  mere  fleshly  desires,  and  starves  out 
the  grosser  particles  of  his  astral  body  as  perseveringly 
as  does  the  pupil  of  the  Great  White  Brotherhood.  But 
though  it  is  only  a  less  material  kind  of  desire  with 
which  he  will  allow  his  mind  to  become  entangled,  the 
centre  of  his  energy  is  none  the  less  entirely  in  his  per- 
sonality, and  when  at  the  end  of  the  astral  life  the  time 
of  the  separation  comes,  the  ego  is  able  to  recover  no 
whit  of  his  investment.  For  the  man  therefore  the  re- 
sult is  much  the  same  as  in  the  former  case,  except  that 
he  will  remain  in  touch  with  the  personality  much  long- 
er, and  will  to  some  extent  share  its  experiences  so  far 
as  it  is  possible  for  an  ego  to  share  them. 

The  fate  of  that  personality,  however,  is  very  differ- 
ent. The  comparatively  tenuous  astral  integument  is 
not  strong  enough  to  hold  it  for  any  length  of  time  on 
the  astral  plane,  and  yet  it  has  entirely  lost  touch  with 
the  heaven-world  which  should  have  been  its  habitat. 
For  the  whole  effort  of  the  man's  life  has  been  to  kill 
out  such  thoughts  as  naturally  find  their  result  at  that 
level.  His  one  endeavour  has  been  to  oppose  natural 
evolution,  to  separate  himself  from  the  great  whole  and 
to  war  against  it;  and  as  far  as  the  personality  goes 
he  has  succeeded.  It  is  cut  off  from  the  light  and  life  of 
the  solar  system ;  all  that  is  left  to  it  is  the  sense  of  ab- 
solute isolation,  of  being  alone  in  the  universe. 

We  see  therefore  that  in  this  rarer  case  the  lost  per- 
sonality practically  shares  the  fate  of  the  ego  from 
which  it  is  in  process  of  detaching  itself.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  ego  such  an  experience  is  only  temporary, 
although  it  may  last  for  what  we  should  call  a  very  long 
time,  and  the  end  of  it  for  him  will  be  reincarnation  and 
a  fresh  opportunity.  For  the  personality  however  the 
end  of  it  is  disintegration — the  invariable  end  of  that 
which  has  cut  itself  off  from  its  source;  but  through 


284  THE  INNER  LIFE 

what  stages  of  horror  the  lost  personality  passes  before 
that  is  reached,  who  shall  say?  Yet  be  it  remembered 
that  neither  of  these  states  is  eternal — that  neither  of 
them  can  in  any  case  be  reached  except  by  deliberate 
life-long  persistence  in  evil. 

I  have  heard  from  our  President  of  yet  another  even 
more  remote  possibility,  of  which  I  have  never  myself 
seen  an  instance.  It  is  stated  that,  just  as  (c)  may  ab- 
sorb (b)  and  revolt  against  (a),  set  up  on  its  own  ac- 
count and  break  away,  it  is  (or  at  any  rate  has  been  in 
the  past)  just  within  the  limits  of  practicability  that 
the  deadly  disease  of  separateness  and  selfishness  may 
infest  (a)  also,  that  it  too  may  be  absorbed  into  the 
monstrous  growth  of  evil,  and  may  be  torn  away  from 
the  undeveloped  portion  of  the  ego,  so  that  the  causal 
body  itself  may  be  hardened  and  carried  away,  instead 
of  only  the  personality. 

If  this  be  so,  it  constitutes  yet  a  fourth  group,  and 
would  correspond  not  to  an  amputation,  but  to  an  en- 
tire destruction  of  the  body.  Such  an  ego  could  not 
reincarnate  in  the  human  race ;  ego  though  it  be,  it  will 
fall  into  the  depths  of  animal  life,  and  would  need  at 
least  a  whole  chain-period  to  regain  the  status  which  it 
had  lost.  But  this,  though  theoretically  possible,  is 
practically  scarcely  conceivable.  Yet  it  will  be  noted 
that  even  then  the  undeveloped  part  of  the  ego  remains 
as  the  vehicle  of  the  monad. 

We  learn  then  that  millions  of  backward  egos,  un- 
able as  yet  to  bear  the  strain  of  the  higher  evolution, 
will  fall  out  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  round  and  come 
along  on  the  crest  of  the  following  wave ;  that  those  who 
live  selfishly,  whether  in  the  intellect  or  the  passions, 
do  so  at  their  own  proper  peril,  and  at  the  serious  risk 
of  much  sorrow  and  loss ;  that  those  who  are  so  fool- 
ish as  to  dabble  in  black  magic  may  bring  upon  them- 


THE  FOCUS  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS  285 

selves  horrors  before  which  imagination  shrinks  ap- 
palled ;  but  that  the  term  "lost  soul"  is,  after  all,  a  mis- 
nomer, since  every  man  is  a  spark  of  the  divine  fire, 
and  therefore  can  never  under  any  circumstances  be 
lost  or  extinguished.  The  will  of  the  Logos  is  man's 
evolution.  In  our  blindness  we  may  for  a  time  resist 
Him,  but  to  Him  time  is  naught,  and  if  we  cannot  see 
to-day  He  waits  patiently  till  to-morrow,  but  always 
in  the  end  His  will  is  done. 


The  Focus  of  Consciousness 

The  consciousness  in  man  can  only  be  focussed  in  one 
vehicle  at  a  time,  though  he  may  be  simultaneously  con- 
scious through  the  others  in  a  vaguer  way.  If  you  will 
hold  up  a  finger  in  front  of  your  face  you  will  find  that 
you  can  so  focus  your  eyes  as  to  see  the  finger  perfectly. 
At  the  same  time  you  will  see  the  wall  and  furniture  be- 
hind the  finger,  but  not  perfectly,  because  they  are  out 
of  focus.  In  a  moment  you  can  change  the  focus  of  your 
eyes,  so  that  you  will  see  the  wall  and  the  furniture 
perfectly ;  in  that  case  you  will  still  see  the  finger,  but 
will  see  it  only  dimly,  because  it  in  turn  is  now  out  of 
focus. 

Precisely  in  the  same  way  if  a  man  who  has  developed 
astral  and  mental  consciousness  focusses  himself  in  the 
physical  brain  as  in  ordinary  life,  he  will  see  perfectly 
the  physical  bodies  of  his  friends,  and  will  at  the  same 
time  see  their  astral  and  mental  bodies,  but  only  some- 
what dimly.  In  far  less  than  a  moment  he  can  change 
that  focus  so  that  he  will  see  the  astral  quite  fully  and 
perfectly.  In  that  case  he  will  still  see  the  mental  and 
physical  bodies,  but  not  in  full  detail.    The  same  thing 


286  THE  INNER  LIFE 

is  true  of  the  mental  sight  and  of  the  sight  of  higher 
planes. 

You  ask  how  it  is  possible  for  an  entity  functioning 
on  the  astral  plane  to  be  aware  of  a  physical  accident 
or  to  hear  a  physical  cry.  It  would  not  be  the  physical 
cry  that  he  would  hear ;  physical  sounds  assuredly  pro- 
duce an  effect  upon  the  astral  plane,  though  I  do  not 
think  that  we  should  be  quite  correct  in  calling  that  re- 
sult sound.  Any  cry  which  had  in  it  strong  feeling  or 
emotion  would  produce  a  strong  effect  upon  the  astral 
plane,  and  would  convey  exactly  the  same  idea  there  as 
here.  In  the  case  of  an  accident  the  rush  of  emotion 
caused  by  the  pain  or  the  fright  would  flame  out  like  a 
great  light,  and  could  not  fail  to  attract  the  attention  of 
a  seer  if  he  were  anywhere  near.  A  case  in  which  this 
very  thing  occurred  is  related  in  Invisible  Helpers — a 
case  in  which  a  boy  fell  over  a  cliff ;  and  was  supported 
and  comforted  by  Cyril  until  physical  help  could  be 
brought. 


Force-Centres 

In  each  of  our  vehicles  there  are  certain  force-centres 
which  in  Sanskrit  are  called  chakrams — a  word  which 
signifies  a  wheel  or  revolving  disc.  These  are  points  of 
connection  at  which  force  flows  from  one  vehicle  to  an- 
other. They  may  easily  be  seen  in  the  etheric  double, 
where  they  show  themselves  as  saucer-like  depressions 
or  vortices  in  its  surface.  They  are  often  spoken  of  as 
corresponding  to  certain  physical  organs ;  but  it  must 
be  remembered  that  the  etheric  force-centre  is  not  in 
the  interior  of  the  body,  but  on  the  surface  of  the 
etheric  double,  which  projects  a  quarter  of  an  inch  be- 
yond the  outline  of  the  denser  matter. 


FORCE-CENTRES  287 

The  centres  which  are  usually  employed  in  occult  de- 
velopment are  seven,  and  they  are  situated  in  the  fol- 
lowing parts  of  the  body:  (1)  the  base  of  the  spine; 
(2)  the  navel;  (3)  the  spleen;  (4)  the  heart;  (5)  the 
throat;  (6)  the  space  between  the  eyebrows;  and  (7) 
the  top  of  the  head.  There  are  other  force-centres  in 
the  body  besides  these,  but  they  are  not  employed  by 
students  of  the  white  magic.  It  may  be  remembered 
that  Madame  Blavatsky  speaks  of  three  others  which 
she  calls  the  lower  centres :  there  are  schools  which  use 
these,  but  the  dangers  connected  with  them  are  so  se- 
rious that  we  should  consider  their  awakening  as  the 
greatest  of  misfortunes. 

These  seven  are  often  described  as  corresponding 
to  the  seven  colors  and  to  the  notes  of  the  musical  scale ; 
and  in  the  Indian  books  certain  letters  of  the  alphabet 
and  certain  forms  of  vitality  are  mentioned  as  attached 
to  each  of  them.  They  are  also  poetically  described  as 
resembling  flowers,  and  to  each  of  them  a  certain  num- 
ber of  petals  is  assigned. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  they  are  vortices  of 
etheric  matter,  and  that  they  are  all  in  rapid  rotation. 
Into  each  of  these  open  mouths,  at  right  angles  to  the 
plane  of  the  whirling  disc  or  saucer,  rushes  a  force 
from  the  astral  world  (which  we  will  call  the  primary 
force) — one  of  the  forces  of  the  Logos.  That  force  is 
seven-fold  in  its  nature,  and  all  its  forme  operate  in  all 
the  centres,  though  in  each  of  them  one  of  the  forms  is 
always  greatly  predominant. 

This  inrush  of  force  brings  the  divine  life  into  the 
physical  body,  and  without  it  that  body  could  not  exist. 
These  centres  through  which  the  force  can  enter  are 
therefore  actually  necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  ve- 
hicle, and  so  are  in  operation  in  every  one,  but  they 
may  be  whirling  with  very  different  degrees  of  activity. 


288  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Their  particles  may  be  in  comparatively  sluggish  mo- 
tion, just  forming  the  necessary  vortex  for  the  force 
and  no  more,  or  they  may  be  glowing  and  pulsating 
with  living  light  so  that  an  enormously  greater  amount 
of  force  passes  through  them,  with  the  result  that  va- 
rious additional  faculties  and  possibilities  are  opened 
to  the  ego  as  he  functions  on  that  plane. 

Now  those  forces  which  rush  into  the  centre  from 
without  set  up  at  right  angles  to  themselves  (that  is  to 
say,  in  the  surface  of  the  etheric  double)  secondary 
forces  in  undulatory  circular  motion,  just  as  a  bar- 
magnet  thrust  into  an  induction  coil  produces  a  current 
of  electricity  which  flows  round  the  coil  at  right  angles 
to  the  axis  or  direction  of  the  magnet.  The  primary 
force  itself  having  entered  the  vortex,  radiates  from  it 
again  at  right  angles,  but  in  straight  lines,  as  though 
the  centre  of  the  vortex  were  the  hub  of  a  wheel,  and 
the  radiations  of  the  primary  force  its  spokes.  The 
number  of  these  "spokes"  differs  in  the  different  force- 
centres,  and  determines  the  number  of  "petals"  which 
each  of  them  exhibits. 

Each  of  these  secondary  forces,  which  sweep  round 
the  saucer-like  depression,  has  its  own  characteristic 
wave-length,  just  as  has  light  of  a  certain  colour;  but 
instead  of  moving  in  a  straight  line  as  light  does,  it 
moves  along  in  certain  relatively  large  undulations  of 
various  sizes,  each  of  which  is  some  multiple  of  the 
smaller  wave-lengths  within  it,  though  the  exact  pro- 
portions have  not  as  yet  been  calculated.  The  number 
of  undulations  is  determined  by  the  number  of  spokes 
in  the  wheel,  and  the  secondary  force  weaves  itself 
under  and  over  the  radiating  currents  of  the  primary 
just  as  basket-work  might  be  woven  round  the  spokes 
of  a  carriage-wheel.  The  wave-lengths  are  infini- 
tesimal, and  probably  some  thousands  of  them  are  in- 


FORCE-CENTRES  289 

eluded  within  one  of  the  undulations.  As  the  forces 
rush  round  in  the  vortex,  these  undulations  of  different 
sizes,  crossing  one  another  in  this  basket-work  pattern, 
produce  an  appearance  which  is  not  inaptly  described 
in  the  Hindu  books  as  resembling  the  petals  of  a  flower ; 
or  it  is  still  more  like  certain  saucers  or  shallow  vases 
of  wavy  iridescent  glass  which  I  have  seen  in  Venice. 
All  of  these  undulations  or  petals  have  that  shimmering 
iridescent  effect,  like  mother-of-pearl,  yet  each  of  them 
has  usually  its  own  predominant  color. 

In  the  ordinary  men,  in  whom  these  centres  are  just 
active  enough  to  be  channels  for  sufficient  force  to  keep 
his  body  alive,  these  colors  glow  with  a  comparatively 
dull  light ;  but  in  those  in  whom  the  centres  have  been 
aroused  and  are  in  full  activity  they  are  of  blinding 
brilliancy,  and  the  centres  themselves,  which  have 
gradually  grown  from  a  diameter  of  about  two  inches 
to  the  size  of  an  ordinary  saucer,  are  blazing  and  co- 
ruscating like  miniature  suns. 

The  first  centre,  at  the  base  of  the  spine,  has  a  pri- 
mary force  which  radiates  out  in  four  spokes,  and  there- 
fore arranges  its  undulations  so  as  to  give  the  effect  of 
its  being  divided  into  quadrants,  with  hollows  between 
them.  This  makes  it  seem  as  though  marked  with  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  for  that  reason  the  cross  is  often 
used  to  symbolize  this  centre,  and  sometimes  a  flaming 
cross  is  taken  to  indicate  the  serpent-fire  which  resides 
in  it.  When  aroused  into  full  activity  this  centre  is 
fiery  orange-red  in  color,  corresponding  closely  with 
the  type  of  vitality  which  is  sent  down  to  it  from  the 
splenic  centre.  Indeed,  it  will  be  noticed  that  in  the 
case  of  every  one  of  these  centres  a  similar  correspond- 
ence with  the  color  of  its  vitality  may  be  seen. 

The  second  centre,  at  the  navel  or  solar  plexus,  re- 
ceives a  primary  force  with  ten  radiations,  so  it  vi- 


290  THE  INNER  LIFE 

brates  in  such  a  manner  as  to  divide  itself  into  ten 
undulations  or  petals.  It  is  very  closely  associated 
with  feelings  and  emotions  of  various  kinds.  Its 
predominant  color  is  a  curious  blending  of  various 
shades  of  red,  though  there  is  also  a  great  deal  of  green 
in  it. 

The  third  centre,  at  the  spleen,  is  devoted  to  the  spe- 
cialization, subdivision  and  dispersion  of  the  vitality 
which  comes  to  us  from  the  sun.  That  vitality  is 
poured  out  again  from  it  in  six  horizontal  streams,  the 
seventh  variety  being  drawn  into  the  hub  of  the  wheel. 
This  centre  therefore  has  six  petals  or  undulations,  and 
is  specially  radiant,  glowing  and  sun-like. 

The  fourth  centre,  at  the  heart,  is  also  of  a  glowing 
golden  color,  and  each  of  its  quadrants  is  divided  into 
three  parts,  which  gives  it  twelve  undulations,  because 
its  primary  force  makes  for  it  twelve  spokes. 

The  fifth  centre,  at  the  throat,  has  sixteen  spokes, 
and  therefore  sixteen  apparent  divisions.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  blue  in  it,  but  its  general  effect  is  silvery 
and  gleaming,  with  a  kind  of  suggestion  as  of  moon- 
light upon  rippling  water. 

The  sixth  centre,  between  the  eyebrows,  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  divided  into  halves,  the  one  pre- 
dominantly rose-colored,  though  with  a  great  deal  of 
yellow  about  it,  and  the  other  predominantly  a  kind  of 
purplish-blue,  again  closely  agreeing  with  the  colors 
of  the  special  types  of  vitality  that  vivify  it.  Perhaps 
it  is  for  this  reason  that  this  centre  is  mentioned  in 
Indian  books  as  having  only  two  petals,  though  if  we 
are  to  count  undulations  of  the  same  character  as  those 
of  the  previous  centres  we  shall  find  that  each  half  is 
subdivided  into  forty-eight  of  these,  making  ninety- 
six  in  all,  because  its  primary  force  has  that  number  of 
radiations. 


FORCE-CENTRES  291 

The  seventh,  the  centre  at  the  top  of  the  head,  is 
when  stirred  into  full  activity  perhaps  the  most  re- 
splendent of  all,  full  of  indescribable  chromatic  effects 
and  vibrating  with  almost  inconceivable  rapidity.  It 
is  described  in  Indian  books  as  thousand-petalled,  and 
really  this  is  not  very  far  from  the  truth,  the  number 
of  the  radiations  of  its  primary  force  in  the  outer  cir- 
cle being  nine  hundred  and  sixty.  In  addition  to  this 
it  has  a  feature  which  is  possessed  by  none  of  the  other 
centres — a  sort  of  subsidiary  whirlpool  of  gleaming 
white  flushed  with  gold  in  its  heart — a  minor  activity 
which  has  twelve  undulations  of  its  own. 

I  have  heard  it  suggested  that  each  of  the  different 
petals  of  these  force-centres  represents  a  moral  qual- 
ity, and  that  the  development  of  that  quality  brings 
the  centre  into  activity,  I  have  not  yet  met  with  any 
facts  which  confirm  this,  nor  am  I  able  to  see  exactly 
how  it  can  be,  because  the  appearance  is  produced  by 
certain  quite  definite  and  easily  recognizable  forces, 
and  the  petals  in  any  particular  centre  are  either  active 
or  not  active  according  as  these  forces  have  or  have  not 
been  aroused,  and  their  development  seems  to  me  to 
have  no  more  connection  with  morality  than  has  the 
development  of  the  biceps.  I  have  certainly  met  with 
persons  in  whom  some  of  the  centres  were  in  full  activ- 
ity, though  the  moral  development  was  by  no  means  ex- 
ceptionally high,  whereas  in  other  persons  of  high 
spirituality  and  the  noblest  possible  morality  the  cen- 
tres were  not  yet  vitalized  at  all,  so  that  there  does  not 
seem  to  me  to  be  any  connection  between  the  two  de- 
velopments. 

Besides  the  keeping  alive  of  the  physical  vehicle, 
these  force-centres  have  another  function,  which  comes 
into  play  only  when  they  are  awakened  into  full  activ- 
ity.   Each  of  these  etheric  centres  corresponds  to  an 


292  THE  INNER  LIFE 

astral  centre  though  as  the  astral  centre  is  a  vortex 
in  four  dimensions  it  has  an  extension  in  a  direction 
quite  different  from  the  etheric,  and  consequently  is  by 
no  means  always  co-terminous  with  it,  though  some 
part  is  always  coincident.  The  etheric  vortex  is  always 
on  the  surface  of  the  etheric  body,  but  the  astral  centre 
is  frequently  quite  in  the  interior  of  that  vehicle. 

The  function  of  each  of  these  etheric  centres  when 
fully  aroused  is  to  bring  down  into  physical  conscious- 
ness whatever  may  be  the  quality  inherent  in  the  astral 
centre  which  corresponds  to  it;  so,  before  cataloguing 
the  results  to  be  obtained  by  arousing  the  etheric  cen- 
tres into  activity,  it  may  be  well  to  consider  what  is 
done  by  each  of  the  astral  centres,  although  these  lat- 
ter are  already  in  full  activity  in  all  cultured  people  of 
the  later  races.  What  effect,  then,  has  the  quickening 
of  each  of  these  astral  centres  produced  in  the  astral 
body? 

The  first  of  these  centres,  that  at  the  base  of  the 
spine,  is  the  home  of  that  mysterious  force  called  the 
serpent-fire  or,  in  The  Voice  of  the  Silence,  the  World's 
Mother.  I  will  say  more  about  this  force  later ;  for  the 
moment  let  us  consider  its  effects  on  the  astral  centres. 
This  force  exists  on  all  planes,  and  by  its  activity  the 
rest  of  the  centres  are  aroused.  We  must  think  of  the 
astral  body  as  having  been  originally  an  almost  inert 
mass,  with  nothing  but  the  vaguest  consciousness,  with 
no  definite  power  of  doing  anything,  and  no  clear  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  which  surrounded  it.  The  first  thing 
that  happened,  then,  was  the  awakening  of  that  force 
in  the  man  at  the  astral  level.  When  awakened  it 
moved  on  to  the  second  centre,  corresponding  to  the 
navel,  and  vivified  it,  thereby  awakening  in  the  astral 
body  the  power  of  feeling — a  sensitiveness  to  all  sorts 
of  influences,  though  without  as  yet  anything  like  the 


FORCE-CENTRES  293 

definite  comprehension  that  comes  from  seeing  or  hear- 
ing. 

Then  it  moved  on  to  the  third,  that  corresponding  to 
the  physical  spleen,  and  through  it  vitalized  the  whole 
astral  body,  enabling  the  person  to  travel  consciously, 
though  with  only  a  vague  conception  as  yet  of  what  he 
encountered  on  his  journeys. 

The  fourth  centre,  when  awakened,  endowed  the  man 
with  the  power  to  comprehend  and  sympathize  with  the 
vibrations  of  other  astral  entities,  so  that  he  could  in- 
stinctively understand  their  feelings. 

The  awakening  of  the  fifth,  that  corresponding  to 
the  throat,  gave  him  the  power  of  hearing  on  the  astral 
plane — that  is  to  say,  it  caused  the  development  of  that 
sense  which  in  the  astral  world  produces  on  our  con- 
sciousness the  effect  which  on  the  physical  plane  we 
call  hearing. 

The  development  of  the  sixth,  that  corresponding  to 
the  centre  between  the  eyebrows,  in  a  similar  manner 
produced  astral  sight — the  power  to  perceive  definitely 
the  shape  and  nature  of  astral  objects,  instead  of 
vaguely  sensing  their  presence. 

The  arousing  of  the  seventh,  that  corresponding  to 
the  top  of  the  head,  rounded  off  and  completed  for  him 
the  astral  life,  and  endowed  him  with  the  perfection 
of  its  faculties. 

With  regard  to  this  centre  a  certain  difference  seems 
to  exist  according  to  the  type  to  which  men  belong. 
For  many  of  us  the  astral  vortices  corresponding  to 
the  sixth  and  seventh  of  these  centres  both  converge 
upon  the  pituitary  body,  and  for  those  people  the  pitu- 
itary body  is  practically  the  only  direct  link  between  the 
physical  and  the  higher  planes.  Another  type  of  peo- 
ple, however,  while  still  attaching  the  sixth  centre  to 
the  pituitary  body,  bend  or  slant  the  seventh  until  its 


294  THE  INNER  LIFE 

vortex  coincides  with  the  atrophied  organ  called  the 
pineal  gland,  which  is  by  people  of  that  type  vivified 
and  made  into  a  line  of  communication  directly  passing 
through  the  intermediate  astral  plane  in  the  ordinary 
way.  It  was  for  this  type  that  Madame  Blavatsky  was 
writing  when  she  laid  such  emphasis  upon  the  awak- 
ening of  that  organ. 

Thus  these  centres  to  some  extent  take  the  place  of 
sense-organs  for  the  astral  body,  and  yet  without 
proper  qualification  that  expression  would  be  decidedly 
a  misleading  one,  for  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that 
though,  in  order  to  make  ourselves  intelligible,  we  con- 
stantly have  to  speak  of  astral  seeing  or  astral  hearing, 
all  that  we  really  mean  by  those  expressions  is  the 
faculty  of  responding  to  such  vibrations  as  convey  to 
the  man's  consciousness,  when  he  is  functioning  in  his 
astral  body,  information  of  the  same  character  as  that 
conveyed  to  him  by  his  eyes  and  ears  while  he  is  in  the 
physical  body. 

But  in  the  entirely  different  astral  conditions  spe- 
cialized organs  are  not  necessary  for  the  attainment  of 
this  result.  There  is  matter  in  every  part  of  the  astral 
body  which  is  capable  of  such  response,  and  conse- 
quently the  man  functioning  in  that  vehicle  sees  equal- 
ly well  the  objects  behind  him,  above  him,  and  beneath 
him,  without  needing  to  turn  his  head.  The  centres, 
therefore,  cannot  be  described  as  organs  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  word,  since  it  is  not  through  them 
that  the  man  sees  or  hears,  as  he  does  here  through  the 
eyes  and  ears.  Yet  it  is  upon  their  vjvification  that  the 
power  of  exercising  these  astral  senses  depends,  each 
of  them  as  it  is  developed  giving  to  the  whole  astral 
body  the  power  of  response  to  a  new  set  of  vibrations. 

As  all  the  particles  of  the  astral  body  are  constantly 
flowing  and  swirling  about  like  those  of  boiling  water, 


FORCE-CENTRES  295 

all  of  them  in  turn  pass  through  each  of  the  centres  or 
vortices,  so  that  each  centre  in  its  turn  evokes  in  all 
the  particles  of  the  body  the  power  of  receptivity  to  a 
certain  set  of  vibrations,  and  so  all  the  astral  senses 
are  equally  active  in  all  parts  of  the  body.  But  even 
when  these  astral  senses  are  fully  awakened  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  the  man  will  be  able  to  bring 
through  his  physical  body  any  consciousness  of  their 
action. 

While  all  this  astral  awakening  was  taking  place, 
then,  the  man  in  his  physical  consciousness  knew  noth- 
ing whatever  of  it.  The  only  way  in  which  the  dense 
body  can  be  brought  to  share  all  these  advantages  is  by 
repeating  that  process  of  awakening  with  the  etheric 
centres.  That  is  to  be  achieved  precisely  in  the  same 
way  as  it  was  done  upon  the  astral  plane — that  is  to 
say,  by  the  arousing  of  the  serpent-fire,  which  exists 
clothed  in  etheric  matter  on  the  physical  plane,  and 
sleeps  in  the  corresponding  etheric  centre,  that  at  the 
base  of  the  spine. 

In  this  case  the  arousing  is  done  by  a  determined  and 
long-continued  effort  of  the  will,  and  to  bring  that  first 
centre  into  full  activity  is  precisely  to  awaken  the  ser- 
pent-fire. When  once  that  is  aroused,  it  is  by  its  tre- 
mendous force  that  the  other  centres  are  vivified.  Its 
effect  on  the  other  etheric  centres  is  to  bring  into  the 
physical  consciousness  the  powers  which  were  aroused 
by  the  development  of  their  corresponding  astral  cen- 
tres. 

When  the  second  of  the  etheric  centres,  that  at  the 
navel,  comes  into  activity  the  man  begins  in  the  physical 
body  to  be  conscious  of  all  kinds  of  astral  influences, 
vaguely  feeling  that  some  of  them  are  friendly  and 
others  hostile,  or  that  some  places  are  pleasant  and 
others  unpleasant,  without  in  the  least  knowing  why. 


296  THE  INNER  LIFE 

When  the  third  centre,  that  at  the  spleen,  is  awak- 
ened, the  man  is  enabled  to  remember  his  vague  astral 
journeys,  though  sometimes  only  very  partially.  The 
effect  of  a  slight  and  accidental  stimulation  of  this  cen- 
tre is  often  to  produce  half-remembrance  of  a  blissful 
sensation  of  flying  through  the  air. 

Stimulation  of  the  fourth,  that  at  the  heart,  makes 
the  man  instinctively  aware  of  the  joys  and  sorrows 
of  others,  and  sometimes  even  causes  him  to  reproduce 
in  himself  by  sympathy  their  physical  aches  and  pains. 

The  arousing  of  the  fifth,  that  at  the  throat,  enables 
him  to  hear  voices,  which  sometimes  make  all  kinds  of 
suggestions  to  him.  Also  sometimes  he  hears  music, 
or  other  less  pleasant  sounds.  When  it  is  fully  working 
it  makes  the  man  clair-audient  as  far  as  the  etheric  and 
astral  planes  are  concerned. 

When  the  sixth,  between  the  eye-brows,  becomes 
vivified,  the  man  begins  to  see  things,  to  have  various 
sorts  of  waking  visions,  sometimes  of  places,  some- 
times of  people.  In  its  earlier  development,  when  it  is 
only  just  beginning  to  be  awakened,  it  often  means 
nothing  more  than  half-seeing  landscapes  and  clouds 
of  color.  The  full  arousing  of  this  brings  about  clair- 
voyance. 

The  centre  between  the  eye-brows  is  connected  with 
sight  in  yet  another  way.  It  is  through  it  that  the  pow- 
er of  magnification  of  minute  physical  objects  is  exer- 
cised. A  tiny  flexible  tube  of  etheric  matter  is  pro- 
jected from  the  centre  of  it,  resembling  a  miscroscopic 
snake  with  an  eye  at  the  end  of  it.  This  is  the  special 
organ  used  in  that  form  of  clairvoyance,  and  the  eye 
at  the  end  of  it  can  be  expanded  or  contracted,  the  ef- 
fect being  to  change  the  power  of  magnification  accord- 
ing to  the  size  of  the  object  which  is  being  examined. 
This  is  what  is  meant  in  ancient  books  when  mention  is 


FORCE-CENTRES  297 

made  of  the  capacity  to  make  oneself  large  or  small  at 
will.  To  examine  an  atom  one  developes  an  organ 
of  vision  commensurate  in  size  with  the  atom.  This 
little  snake  projecting  from  the  centre  of  the  forehead 
was  symbolized  upon  the  head-dress  of  the  Pharaoh  of 
Egypt,  who  as  the  chief  priest  of  his  country  was  sup- 
posed to  possess  this  among  many  other  occult  powers. 

When  the  seventh  centre  is  awakened  the  man  is  able 
by  passing  through  it  to  leave  his  body  in  full  conscious- 
ness, and  also  to  return  to  it  without  the  usual  break, 
so  that  his  consciousness  will  be  continuous  through 
night  and  day.  When  the  fire  has  been  passed  through 
all  these  centres  in  a  certain  order  (which  varies  for 
different  types  of  people)  the  consciousness  becomes 
continuous  up  to  the  entry  into  the  heaven-world  at 
the  end  of  the  life  on  the  astral  plane,  no  difference  be- 
ing made  by  either  the  temporary  separation  from  the 
physical  body  during  sleep  or  the  permanent  division 
at  death. 

Before  this  is  done,  however,  the  man  may  have 
many  glimpses  of  the  astral  world,  for  especially  strong 
vibrations  may  at  any  time  galvanize  one  or  other  of 
the  centres  into  temporary  activity,  without  arousing 
the  serpent-fire  at  all;  or  it  may  happen  that  the  fire 
may  be  partially  roused,  and  in  this  way  also  partial 
clairvoyance  may  be  produced  for  the  time.  For  this 
fire  exists  in  seven  layers  or  seven  degrees  of  force, 
and  it  often  happens  that  a  man  who  exerts  his  will 
in  the  effort  to  arouse  it  may  succeed  in  affecting  one 
layer  only,  and  so  when  he  thinks  that  he  has  done  the 
work  he  may  find  it  ineffective,  and  may  have  to  do  it 
all  over  again  many  times,  digging  gradually  deeper 
and  deeper,  until  not  only  the  surface  is  stirred  but  the 
very  heart  of  the  fire  is  in  full  activity. 


298  THE  INNER  LIFE 


The  Serpent-Fire 


As  we  know  it,  this  serpent-fire  (called  in  Sanskrit 
kundalini)  is  the  manifestation  on  the  physical  plane 
of  one  of  the  great  world-forces — one  of  the  powers  of 
the  LOGOS.  You  know  that  what  we  call  electricity  is 
a  manifestation  of  one  of  His  forces,  and  that  that 
force  may  take  various  forms,  such  as  heat,  light  and 
motion.  Another  of  His  forces  is  vitality — what  is 
sometimes  called  prana,  but  this  is  not  interchangeable 
with  any  of  those  other  forms  which  we  have  just  men- 
tioned. We  may  say  then  that  vitality  and  electricity 
are  as  it  were  the  lower  ends  of  two  of  His  streams 
of  force. 

This  serpent-fire  may  be  taken  as  the  lower  end  of 
another  of  His  streams,  the  physical-plane  manifesta- 
tion of  another  of  the  manifold  aspects  of  His  power. 
Like  vitality,  it  exists  on  all  planes  of  which  we  know 
anything;  but  it  is  the  expression  of  it  in  etheric  mat- 
ter with  which  we  have  to  do.  It  is  not  convertible 
into  either  vitality  or  electricity,  and  does  not  seem  to 
be  affected  in  any  way  by  either.  I  have  seen  as  much 
as  a  million  and  a  quarter  volts  of  electricity  put  into 
a  human  body,  so  that  when  the  man  held  out  his  arm 
towards  the  wall  huge  flames  rushed  out  from  his  fin- 
gers, yet  he  felt  nothing  unusual,  nor  was  he  in  the 
least  burnt  unless  he  accidentally  touched  some  ex- 
ternal object ;  but  even  this  enormous  display  of  power 
had  no  effect  whatever  upon  the  serpent-fire. 

In  The  Voice  of  the  Silence  this  force  is  called  "the 
Fiery  Power"  and  "the  World's  Mother."  There  is 
much  reason  for  all  these  strange  names,  for  it  is  in 
very  truth  like  liquid  fire  as  it  rushes  through  the  body, 
and  the  course  through  which  it  ought  to  move  is  a 
spiral  one  like  the  coils  of  a  serpent.    It  is  called  the 


THE  SERPENT-FIRE  299 

World's  Mother  because  through  it  our  various  vehicles 
may  be  vivified,  so  that  the  higher  worlds  may  open 
before  us  in  succession. 

In  the  body  of  man  its  home,  as  we  have  said,  is  at 
the  base  of  the  spine,  and  for  the  ordinary  person  it 
lies  there  unawakened,  and  its  very  presence  unsus- 
pected, during  the  whole  of  his  life ;  and  it  is  indeed  far 
better  to  allow  it  thus  to  remain  dormant  until  the  man 
has  made  definite  moral  development,  until  his  will  is 
strong  enough  to  control  it  and  his  thoughts  pure 
enough  to  enable  him  to  face  its  awakening  without 
injury.  No  one  should  experiment  with  it  without  def- 
inite instruction  from  a  teacher  who  thoroughly  under- 
stands the  subject,  for  the  dangers  connected  with  it 
are  very  real  and  terribly  serious.  Some  of  them  are 
purely  physical.  Its  uncontrolled  movement  often  pro- 
duces intense  physical  pain,  and  it  may  readily  tear  tis- 
sues and  even  destroy  physical  life.  This,  however, 
is  the  least  of  the  evils  of  which  it  is  capable,  for  it 
may  do  permanent  injury  to  vehicles  higher  than  the 
physical. 

One  very  common  effect  of  rousing  it  prematurely 
is  that  it  rushes  downwards  in  the  body  instead  of  up- 
wards, and  thus  excites  the  most  undesirable  passions 
— excites  them  and  intensifies  their  effects  to  such  a 
degree  that  it  becomes  absolutely  impossible  for  the 
man  to  resist  them,  because  a  force  has  been  brought 
into  play  in  whose  presence  he  is  as  helpless  as  a  swim- 
mer before  the  jaws  of  a  shark.  Such  men  become 
satyrs,  monsters  of  depravity,  because  they  are  in  the 
grasp  of  a  force  which  is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
ordinary  human  power  of  resistance.  They  may  prob- 
ably gain  certain  supernormal  powers,  but  these  will 
be  such  as  will  bring  them  into  touch  with  a  lower 
order  of  evolution  with  which  humanity  is  intended  to 


300  THE  INNER  LIFE 

hold  no  commerce,  and  to  escape  from  its  awful  thral- 
dom may  take  them  more  than  one  incarnation.  I  am 
not  in  any  way  exaggerating  the  horror  of  this  thing, 
as  a  person  to  whom  it  was  all  a  matter  of  hearsay 
might  unwittingly  do.  I  have  myself  been  consulted 
by  people  upon  whom  this  awful  fate  has  already  come, 
and  I  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes  what  happened  to 
them.  There  is  a  school  of  black  magic  which  pur- 
posely uses  this  power  in  this  way,  in  order  that 
through  it  may  be  vivified  those  lower  force-centres 
which  are  never  used  by  the  followers  of  the  Good 
Law. 

Even  apart  from  this  greatest  of  its  dangers,  its 
premature  unfoldment  has  many  other  unpleasant  pos- 
sibilities. It  intensifies  everything  in  man's  nature, 
and  it  reaches  the  lower  and  evil  qualities  more  readily 
than  the  good.  In  the  mental  body,  for  example,  ambi- 
tion is  very  readily  aroused,  and  soon  swells  to  an  in- 
credibly inordinate  degree.  It  would  be  likely  to  bring 
with  it  a  great  intensification  of  the  power  of  intellect, 
but  at  the  same  time  it  would  produce  abnormal  and 
satanic  pride,  such  as  is  quite  inconceivable  to  the  ordi- 
nary man.  It  is  not  wise  for  a  man  to  think  that  he  is 
prepared  to  cope  with  any  force  that  may  arise  within 
his  body ;  this  is  no  ordinary  force,  but  something  re- 
sistless. Assuredly  no  uninstructed  man  should  ever 
try  to  awaken  it,  and  if  such  a  one  finds  that  it  has 
been  aroused  by  accident  he  should  at  once  consult 
some  one  who  fully  understands  these  matters. 

It  may  be  noticed  that  I  have  specially  and  inten- 
tionally refrained  from  explaining  how  this  arousing 
is  to  be  done,  or  mentioning  the  order  in  which  the 
force  (when  aroused)  should  be  passed  through  these 
various  centres,  for  that  should  by  no  means  be  at- 
tempted except  at  the  express  suggestion  of  a  Master, 


THE  SERPENT-FIRE  301 

who  will  watch  over  His  pupil  during  the  various 
stages  of  the  experiment. 

I  most  solemnly  warn  all  students  against  making 
any  effort  whatever  in  the  direction  of  awakening 
these  tremendous  forces,  except  under  such  qualified 
tuition,  for  I  have  myself  seen  many  cases  of  the  terri- 
ble effects  which  follow  from  ignorant  and  ill-advised 
meddling  with  these  very  serious  matters.  The  force 
is  a  tremendous  reality,  one  of  the  great  basic  facts 
of  nature,  and  most  emphatically  it  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
played  with,  or  to  be  lightly  taken  in  hand,  for  to  ex- 
periment with  it  without  understanding  it  is  far  more 
dangerous  than  it  would  be  for  a  child  to  play  with 
nitroglycerine.  As  is  very  truly  said  in  the  Hathayo- 
gapradipika :  "It  gives  liberation  to  yogis  and  bondage 
to  fools."    (iii.  107.) 

In  matters  such  as  these,  students  so  often  seem  to 
think  that  some  special  exception  to  the  laws  of  nature 
will  be  made  in  their  case,  that  some  special  interven- 
tion of  providence  will  save  them  from  the  conse- 
quences of  their  folly.  Assuredly  nothing  of  that  sort 
will  happen,  and  the  man  who  wantonly  provokes  an 
explosion  is  quite  likely  to  become  its  first  victim.  It 
would  save  much  trouble  and  disappointment  if  stu- 
dents could  be  induced  to  understand  that  in  all  mat- 
ters connected  with  occultism  we  mean  just  exactly 
and  literally  what  we  say,  and  that  it  is  applicable  in 
every  case  without  exception.  For  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  favoritism  in  the  working  of  the  great  laws  of 
the  universe. 

Everybody  wants  to  try  all  possible  experiments; 
everybody  is  convinced  that  he  is  quite  ready  for  the 
highest  possible  teaching  and  for  any  sort  of  develop- 
ment, and  no  one  is  willing  to  work  patiently  along  at 
the  improvement  of  character,  and  to  devote  his  time 


302  THE  INNER  LIFE 

and  his  energies  to  doing  something  useful  for 
the  work  of  the  Society,  waiting  for  all  these 
other  things  until  a  Master  shall  announce  that  he 
is  ready  for  them.  The  old  aphorism  still  remains 
true :  "Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His 
righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto 
you." 

There  are  some  cases  in  which  the  fire  wakes  spon- 
taneously, so  that  a  dull  glow  is  felt ;  it  may  even  begin 
to  move  of  itself,  though  this  is  rare.  In  this  latter  case 
it  would  be  likely  to  cause  great  pain,  as,  since  the  pas- 
sages are  not  prepared  for  it,  it  would  have  to  clear  its 
way  by  actually  burning  up  a  great  deal  of  etheric 
dross — a  process  that  cannot  but  engender  suffering. 
When  it  thus  awakes  of  itself  or  is  accidentally  aroused, 
it  usually  tries  to  rush  up  the  interior  of  the  spine, 
instead  of  following  the  spiral  course  into  which  the 
occultist  is  trained  to  guide  it.  If  it  be  possible,  the 
will  should  be  set  in  motion  to  arrest  its  onward  rush, 
but  if  that  proves  to  be  impossible  (as  is  most  likely) 
no  alarm  need  be  felt.  It  will  probably  rush  out 
through  the  head  and  escape  into  the  surrounding  at- 
mosphere, and  it  is  likely  that  no  harm  will  result  be- 
yond a  slight  weakening.  Nothing  worse  than  a  tem- 
porary loss  of  consciousness  need  be  apprehended. 
The  really  appalling  dangers  are  connected  not  with 
its  upward  rush,  but  with  the  possibility  of  its  turning 
downwards  and  inwards. 

Its  principal  function  in  connection  with  occult  de- 
velopment is  that  by  being  sent  through  the  force- 
centres  in  the  etheric  body,  as  above  described,  it  vivi- 
fies these  centres  and  makes  them  available  as  gates  of 
connection  between  the  physical  and  astral  bodies.  It 
is  said  in  The  Voice  of  the  Silence  that  when  the  ser- 
pent-fire reaches  the  centre  between  the  eye-brows  and 


THE  SERPENT-FIRE  303 

fully  vivifies  it,  it  confers  the  power  of  hearing  the 
voice  of  the  Master — which  means  in  this  case  the 
voice  of  the  ego  or  higher  self.  The  reason  for  this 
statement  is  that  when  the  pituitary  body  is  brought 
into  working  order  it  forms  a  perfect  link  with  the 
astral  vehicle,  so  that  through  it  all  communications 
from  within  can  be  received. 

It  is  not  only  this  one;  all  the  higher  force-centres 
have  presently  to  be  awakened,  and  each  must  be  made 
responsive  to  all  kinds  of  astral  influences  from  the 
various  astral  sub-planes.  This  development  will  come 
to  all  in  due  course,  but  most  people  cannot  gain  it  dur- 
ing the  present  incarnation,  if  it  is  the  first  in  which 
they  have  begun  to  take  these  matters  seriously  in 
hand.  Some  Indians  might  succeed  in  doing  so,  as 
their  bodies  are  by  heredity  more  adaptable  than  most 
others;  but  it  is  really  for  the  majority  the  work  of  a 
later  round  altogether.  The  conquest  of  the  serpent- 
fire  has  to  be  repeated  in  each  incarnation,  since  the 
vehicles  are  new  each  time,  but  after  it  has  been  once 
thoroughly  achieved  these  repetitions  will  be  an  easy 
matter.  It  must  be  remembered  that  its  action  varies 
with  different  types  of  people;  some,  for  example, 
would  see  the  higher  self  rather  than  hear  its  voice. 
Again,  this  connection  with  the  higher  has  many 
stages ;  for  the  personality  it  means  the  influence  of  the 
ego,  but  for  the  ego  himself  it  means  the  power  of  the 
monad,  and  for  the  monad  in  turn  it  means  to  become 
a  conscious  expression  of  the  Logos. 

It  may  be  of  use  if  I  mention  my  own  experience 
in  this  matter.  In  the  earlier  part  of  my  residence  in 
India  twenty-five  years  ago  I  made  no  effort  to  rouse 
the  fire — not  indeed  knowing  very  much  about  it,  and 
having  the  opinion  that,  in  order  to  do  anything  with 
it,  it  was  necessary  to  be  born  with  a  specially  psychic 


304  THE  INNER  LIFE 

body,  which  I  did  not  possess.  But  one  day  one  of  the 
Masters  made  a  suggestion  to  me  with  regard  to  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  meditation  which  would  evoke  this  force. 
Naturally  I  at  once  put  the  suggestion  into  practice, 
and  in  course  of  time  was  successful.  I  have  no  doubt, 
however,  that  He  watched  the  experiment,  and  would 
have  checked  me  if  it  had  become  dangerous.  I  am  told 
that  there  are  Indian  ascetics  who  teach  this  to  their 
pupils,  of  course  keeping  them  under  careful  supervi- 
sion during  the  process.  But  I  do  not  myself  know  of 
any  such,  nor  should  I  have  confidence  in  them  unless 
they  were  specially  recommended  by  some  one  whom  I 
knew  to  be  possessed  of  real  knowledge. 

People  often  ask  me  what  I  advise  them  to  do  with 
regard  to  the  arousing  of  this  force.  I  advise  them  to 
do  exactly  what  I  myself  did.  I  recommend  them  to 
throw  themselves  into  Theosophical  work  and  wait 
until  they  receive  a  definite  command  from  some  Mas- 
ter who  will  undertake  to  superintend  their  psychic 
development,  continuing  in  the  meantime  all  the  ordi- 
nary exercises  of  meditation  that  are  known  to  them. 
They  should  not  care  in  the  least  whether  such  develop- 
ment comes  in  this  incarnation  or  in  the  next,  but 
should  regard  the  matter  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
ego  and  not  of  the  personality,  feeling  absolutely  cer- 
tain that  the  Masters  are  always  watching  for  those 
whom  They  can  help,  that  it  is  entirely  impossible  for 
any  one  to  be  overlooked,  and  that  They  will  unques- 
tionably give  Their  directions  when  They  think  that 
the  right  time  has  come. 

I  have  never  heard  that  there  is  any  sort  of  age  limit 
with  regard  to  the  development,  and  I  do  not  see  that 
age  should  make  any  difference,  so  long  as  one  has  per- 
fect health;  but  the  health  is  a  necessity,  for  only  a 
strong  body  can  endure  the  strain,  which  is  much  more 


THE  SERPENT-FIRE  305 

serious  than  any  one  who  has  not  made  the  attempt 
can  possibly  imagine. 

The  force  when  aroused  must  be  very  strictly  con- 
trolled, and  it  must  be  moved  through  the  centres  in  an 
order  which  differs  for  people  of  different  types.  The 
movement  also,  to  be  effective,  must  be  made  in  a  par- 
ticular way,  which  the  Master  will  explain  when  the 
time  comes. 

I  have  said  that  the  astral  and  etheric  centres  are  in 
very  close  correspondence;  but  between  them,  and  in- 
terpenetrating them  in  a  manner  not  readily  describ- 
able,  is  a  sheath  composed  of  a  single  layer  of  physical 
atoms  much  compressed  and  permeated  by  a  special 
form  of  vital  force.  The  divine  life  which  normally 
descends  from  the  astral  body  to  the  physical  is  so 
attuned  as  to  pass  through  this  with  perfect  ease,  but 
it  is  an  absolute  barrier  to  all  other  forces — all  which 
cannot  use  the  atomic  matter  of  both  the  planes.  This 
web  is  the  natural  protection  provided  by  nature  to 
prevent  a  premature  opening  up  of  communication  be- 
tween the  planes — a  development  which  could  lead  to 
nothing  but  injury. 

It  is  this  which  under  normal  conditions  prevents 
clear  recollection  of  what  has  happened  during  sleep, 
and  it  is  this  also  which  causes  the  momentary  uncon- 
sciousness which  always  occurs  at  death.  But  for  this 
merciful  provision  the  ordinary  man,  who  knows  noth- 
ing about  all  these  things  and  is  entirely  unprepared 
to  meet  them,  could  at  any  moment  be  brought  by  any 
astral  entity  under  the  influences  of  forces  to  cope  with 
which  would  be  entirely  beyond  his  strength.  He  would 
be  liable  to  constant  obsession  by  any  being  on  the 
astral  plane  who  desired  to  seize  upon  his  vehicles. 

It  will  therefore  be  readily  understood  that  any  in- 
jury to  this  web  is  a  serious  disaster.    There  are  sev- 


306  THE  INNER  LIFE 

eral  ways  in  which  injury  may  come,  and  it  behooves  us 
to  use  our  best  endeavors  to  guard  against  it.  It  may 
come  either  by  accident  or  by  continued  malpractice. 
Any  great  shock  to  the  astral  body,  such  for  example 
as  a  sudden  terrible  fright,  may  rend  apart  this  deli- 
cate organism  and,  as  it  is  commonly  expressed,  drive 
the  man  mad.  (Of  course  there  are  other  ways  in 
which  fear  may  cause  insanity,  but  this  is  one.)  A 
tremendous  outburst  of  anger  may  also  produce  the 
same  effect.  Indeed  it  may  follow  upon  any  exceed- 
ingly strong  emotion  of  an  evil  character  which  pro- 
duces a  kind  of  explosion  in  the  astral  body. 

The  malpractices  which  may  more  gradually  injure 
this  protective  web  are  of  two  classes — the  use  of  alco- 
hol or  narcotic  drugs  and  the  deliberate  endeavor  to 
throw  open  the  doors  which  nature  has  kept  closed,  by 
means  of  such  a  process  as  is  described  in  spiritualistic 
parlance  as  sitting  for  development.  Certain  drugs 
and  drinks — notably  alcohol  and  all  the  narcotics,  in- 
cluding tobacco — contain  matter  which  on  breaking  up 
volatilizes,  and  some  of  it  passes  from  the  physical 
plane  to  the  astral.  (Even  tea  and  coffee  contain  this 
matter,  but  in  quantities  so  infinitesimal  that  it  is 
usually  only  after  long-continued  abuse  of  them  that 
the  effect  manifests  itself.) 

When  this  takes  place  in  the  body  of  man  these  con- 
stituents rush  out  through  the  force-centres  in  the  op- 
posite direction  to  that  for  which  they  are  intended, 
and  in  doing  this  repeatedly  they  seriously  injure  and 
finally  destroy  the  delicate  web.  This  deterioration  or 
destruction  may  be  brought  about  in  two  different 
ways,  according  to  the  type  of  the  person  concerned 
and  to  the  proportion  of  the  constituents  in  his  etheric 
and  astral  bodies.  First,  the  rush  of  volatilizing  matter 
actually  burns  away  the  web,  and  therefore  leaves  the 


THE  SERPENT-FIRE  307 

door  open  to  all  sorts  of  irregular  forces  and  evil  in- 
fluences. 

The  second  result  is  that  these  volatile  constituents, 
in  flowing  through,  somehow  harden  the  atom  so  that 
its  pulsation  is  to  a  large  extent  checked  and  crippled, 
and  it  is  no  longer  capable  of  being  vitalized  by  the 
particular  type  of  force  which  welds  it  into  a  web.  The 
result  of  this  is  a  kind  of  ossification  of  the  web,  so 
that  instead  of  having  too  much  coming  through  from 
one  plane  to  the  other,  we  have  very  little  of  any  kind 
coming  through. 

We  may  see  the  effects  of  both  these  types  of  dete- 
rioration in  the  case  of  men  who  yield  themselves  to 
drunkenness.  Some  of  those  who  are  affected  in  the 
former  way  fall  into  delirium  tremens,  obsession  or 
insanity;  but  those  are  after  all  comparatively  rare. 
Far  more  common  is  the  second  type  of  deterioration 
— the  case  in  which  we  have  a  kind  of  general  deaden- 
ing down  of  the  man's  qualities,  resulting  in  gross  ma- 
terialism, brutality  and  animalism,  in  the  loss  of  all 
finer  feelings  and  of  the  power  to  control  himself.  He 
no  longer  feels  any  sense  of  responsibility;  he  may 
love  his  wife  and  children  when  sober,  but  when  the 
fit  of  drunkenness  comes  upon  him  he  will  use  the 
money  which  should  have  bought  bread  for  them  to 
satisfy  his  own  bestial  cravings,  the  affection  and 
the  responsibility  having  apparently  entirely  dis- 
appeared. 

The  second  type  of  effect  is  very  commonly  to  be 
seen  among  those  who  are  slaves  of  the  tobacco  habit ; 
again  and  again  we  find  that  they  persist  in  their  self- 
indulgence  even  when  they  know  perfectly  well  that 
it  causes  nausea  and  misery  to  their  neighbors.  We 
shall  recognize  the  deterioration  at  once  when  we  think 
that  this  is  the  only  practice  in  which  a  gentleman  will 


308  THE  INNER  LIFE 

persist  when  he  is  aware  that  it  causes  acute  annoy- 
ance to  others.  Clearly  in  this  case  the  finer  feelings 
have  already  been  seriously  blunted. 

All  impressions  which  pass  from  one  plane  to  the 
other  are  intended  to  come  only  through  the  atomic 
sub-planes,  as  I  have  said ;  but  when  this  deadening 
process  sets  in,  it  presently  infects  not  only  other 
atomic  matter,  but  matter  of  even  the  second  and  third 
sub-planes,  so  that  the  only  communication  between 
the  astral  and  the  etheric  is  when  some  force  acting  on 
the  lower  sub-planes  (upon  which  only  unpleasant  and 
evil  influences  are  to  be  found)  happens  to  be  strong 
enough  to  compel  a  response  by  the  violence  of  its  vi- 
bration. 

Nevertheless,  though  nature  takes  such  precautions 
to  guard  these  centres,  she  by  no  means  intends  that 
they  shall  always  be  kept  rigidly  closed.  There  is  a 
proper  way  in  which  they  may  be  opened.  Perhaps 
it  would  be  more  correct  to  say  that  the  intention  is 
not  that  the  doors  should  be  opened  any  wider  than 
their  present  position,  but  that  the  man  should  so  de- 
velop himself  as  that  he  can  bring  a  great  deal  more 
through  the  recognized  channel. 

The  consciousness  of  the  ordinary  man  cannot  yet 
use  pure  atomic  matter  either  in  the  physical  body  or 
in  the  astral,  and  therefore  there  is  normally  no  possi- 
bility for  him  of  conscious  communication  at  will  be- 
tween the  two  planes.  The  proper  way  to  obtain  that 
is  to  purify  both  the  vehicles  until  the  atomic  matter 
in  both  is  fully  vivified,  so  that  all  communications  be- 
tween the  two  may  be  able  to  pass  by  that  road.  In 
that  case  the  web  retains  to  the  fullest  degree  its  posi- 
tion and  activity,  and  yet  is  no  longer  a  barrier  to  the 
perfect  communication,  while  it  still  continues  to  ful- 
fill its  purpose  of  preventing  the  close  contact  between 


OBSESSION  AND  INSANITY  309 

lower  sub-planes  which  would  permit  all  sorts  of  unde- 
sirable influences  to  pass  through. 

That  is  why  we  are  always  adjured  to  wait  for  the 
unfolding  of  psychic  powers  until  they  come  in  the 
natural  course  of  events  as  a  consequence  of  the  devel- 
opment of  character,  as  we  see  from  the  study  of  these 
force-centres  that  they  surely  will.  That  is  the  natural 
evolution ;  that  is  the  only  really  safe  way,  for  by  it  the 
student  obtains  all  the  benefits  and  avoids  all  the  dan- 
gers. That  is  the  Path  which  our  Masters  have  trod- 
den in  the  past ;  that  therefore  is  the  Path  for  us  to-day. 


Obsession  and  Insanity 

We  must  distinguish  carefully  between  obsession 
and  insanity.  The  latter  is  a  break  in  the  connection 
between  the  ego  and  his  vehicles,  while  the  former  is 
the  ousting  of  the  ego  by  some  other  entity.  Only  a 
weak  ego  would  permit  obsession — an  ego,  I  mean,  who 
had  not  much  hold  upon  his  vehicles.  It  is  not  as  a  rule 
true  that  children  are  more  easily  obsessed  than  adults, 
because  though  it  is  true  that  the  hold  of  the  ego  upon 
its  bodies  is  less  strong  in  childhood,  it  is  also  true  that 
the  adult  is  far  more  likely  to  have  in  him  qualities 
which  attract  undesirable  entities  and  make  obsession 
easy.  In  the  case  of  a  little  child,  any  entity  trying  to 
obsess  the  body  would  have  first  to  face  the  elemental 
who  is  in  charge  of  the  building  of  it,  and  he  is  not 
at  all  likely  to  succeed  in  ousting  that.  After  the  age 
of  seven,  when  the  elemental  has  been  withdrawn, 
obsession  might  take  place  if  the  ego  was  very  weak; 
but  it  is  fortunately  rare. 

Obsession  may  be  permanent  or  temporary,  and  it 


310  THE  INNER  LIFE 

is  undertaken  for  various  reasons.  Often  some  dead 
person  is  filled  with  burning  anxiety  to  come  again  into 
touch  with  the  physical  plane,  generally  for  the  satis- 
faction of  the  lowest  and  grossest  desires,  and  in  his 
desperate  yearning  he  seizes  upon  any  vehicle  which  he 
can  steal.  Sometimes,  on  the  other  hand,  obsession  is 
a  definite  and  calculated  act  of  revenge — not  always 
upon  the  person  obsessed.  I  knew  a  case  in  which  a 
man  who  hated  another  deliberately  went  to  work  to 
obtain  control  of  and  obsess  his  enemy's  favorite 
daughter ;  I  know  also  of  another  instance  even  worse 
than  that.  Sometimes  the  obsessing  entity  is  not  hu- 
man at  all,  but  only  a  nature-spirit  who  desires  expe- 
rience of  human  life.  In  any  and  all  cases  obsession 
should  be  determinedly  resisted  by  the  victim. 

Insanity  is  an  entirely  different  matter.  Let  us  try 
to  look  at  it  from  the  occult  point  of  view.  Every  cell 
in  the  physical  Drain  and  every  particle  of  its  matter 
has  its  corresponding  and  interpenetrating  astral  mat- 
ter; and  behind  (or  rather  within)  that,  it  has  also  the 
still  finer  mental  matter.  Of  course  the  brain  is  a 
cubical  mass,  bat  for  the  purposes  of  our  examination 
let  us  suppose  that  it  could  be  spread  out  upon  a  surface 
so  that  it  should  be  only  one  particle  thick.  Then  fur- 
ther suppose  that  the  astral  and  mental  matter  belong- 
ing to  it  could  also  be  laid  out  in  layers  in  a  similar 
manner,  the  astral  layer  a  little  above  the  physical,  and 
the  mental  a  little  above  the  astral. 

Then  we  should  have  three  layers  of  matter  of  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  density,  all  corresponding  one  to 
the  other.  Now  suppose  that  each  physical  particle  is 
joined  to  the  corresponding  astral  particle  by  a  little 
tube,  and  each  astral  particle  is  joined  to  its  corre- 
sponding mental  particle  in  the  same  way,  and  even 
(higher  up  still)   each  mental  particle  to  something 


OBSESSION  AND  INSANITY  311 

which  corresponds  to  it  in  the  causal  body.  So  long  as 
all  these  tubes  were  perfectly  in  alignment  there  would 
be  clear  communication  between  the  ego  and  his  brain ; 
but  if  any  one  of  the  sets  of  tubes  were  bent,  closed, 
or  knocked  partially  aside,  it  is  obvious  that  the  com- 
munication might  be  wholly  or  partially  interrupted. 

From  the  occult  standpoint,  therefore,  we  divide  the 
insane  into  four  great  classes,  each  of  course  having 
many  sub-divisions. 

1.  Those  who  are  insane  merely  from  a  defect  of 
the  dense  physical  brain — from  its  insufficient  size, 
perhaps,  or  from  some  accident  like  a  heavy  blow,  or 
some  growth  which  causes  pressure  upon  it  or  from 
gradual  softening  of  the  tissue. 

2.  Those  whose  defect  is  in  the  etheric  part  of  the 
brain,  so  that  its  particles  no  longer  correspond  per- 
fectly with  the  denser  physical  particles,  and  so  cannot 
properly  bring  through  the  vibrations  from  the  higher 
vehicles. 

3.  Those  in  whom  the  astral  body  is  defective  in- 
stead of  the  etheric — in  whom  its  tubes  are  bent,  as  it 
were,  so  that  there  is  a  want  of  accurate  adjustment 
between  its  particles  and  those  of  the  vehicles  either 
above  or  below  it. 

4.  Those  in  whom  the  mind-body  itself  is  in  some 
way  out  of  order,  and  consequently  is  unable  to  bring 
through  the  instructions  or  wishes  of  the  ego. 

It  makes  a  very  great  difference  to  which  of  these 
classes  an  insane  person  belongs.  Those  of  the  first 
and  second  types  are  quite  sensible  when  out  of  the 
body  during  sleep,  and  of  course  also  after  death,  so 
that  the  ego  loses  only  the  expression  of  himself  during 
waking  life.  Those  of  the  third  type  do  not  recover 
until  they  reach  the  heaven-world,  and  the  fourth  class 
not  until  they  return  into  the  causal  body;  so  that  for 


312  THE  INNER  LIFE 

this  last  class  the  incarnation  is  a  failure.  But  for- 
tunately more  than  ninety  per  cent  of  the  insane  belong 
to  the  first  and  second  classes. 

Three  questions  are  asked  upon  the  unsavory  subject 
of  obsession ;  I  will  proceed  to  answer  them.  The  first 
is:  "What  is  the  best  way  to  get  rid  of  an  excarnate 
human  being  who  persists  in  occupying  one's  body?" 

I  should  simply  and  absolutely  decline  to  be  so  ob- 
sessed. The  best  and  kindest  plan  would  be  to  have 
an  explanation  with  the  dead  person,  to  enquire  what 
he  wants  and  why  he  makes  such  persistent  attempts. 
Quite  probably,  he  may  be  some  ignorant  soul  who  does 
not  at  all  comprehend  his  new  surroundings,  and  is 
striving  madly  to  get  into  touch  again  with  the  only 
kind  of  life  that  he  understands.  In  that  case  if  mat- 
ters are  explained  to  him,  he  may  be  brought  to  a  hap- 
pier frame  of  mind  and  induced  to  cease  his  ill-directed 
efforts.  Or  the  poor  creature  may  have  something  on 
his  mind — some  duty  unfulfilled  or  some  wrong  un- 
righted ;  if  this  be  so,  and  the  matter  can  be  arranged 
to  his  satisfaction,  he  may  then  be  at  peace. 

If,  however,  he  proves  not  to  be  amenable  to  reason, 
if  in  spite  of  all  argument  and  explanation  he  refuses 
to  abandon  his  reprehensible  line  of  action,  it  will  be 
necessary  gently  but  firmly  to  resist  him.  Every  man 
has  an  inalienable  right  to  the  use  of  his  own  vehicle, 
and  encroachments  of  this  nature  should  not  be  per- 
mitted. If  the  lawful  possessor  of  the  body  will  con- 
fidently assert  himself  and  use  his  own  will-power  no 
obsession  can  take  place. 

When  such  things  occur,  it  is  almost  always  because 
the  victim  has  in  the  first  place  yielded  himself  to  the 
invading  influence,  and  his  first  step  therefore  is  to 
reverse  that  act  of  submission,  to  determine  strongly 
to  take  matters  into  his  own  hands  again  and  to  resume 


OBSESSION  AND  INSANITY  313 

control  over  his  property.  It  is  this  reassertion  of  him- 
self that  is  the  fundamental  requirement,  and  though 
much  help  may  be  given  by  wise  friends,  nothing  which 
they  can  do  will  take  the  place  of  the  development  of 
will-power  on  the  part  of  the  victim,  or  obviate  the 
necessity  for  it.  The  exact  method  of  procedure  will 
naturally  vary  according  to  the  details  of  the  case. 

The  second  question  runs  thus:  "I  have  long  been 
troubled  by  entities  who  constantly  suggest  evil  ideas 
and  make  use  of  coarse  and  violent  language.  They 
are  always  urging  me  to  take  strong  drink,  and  goading 
me  on  to  the  consumption  of  large  quantities  of  meat. 
I  have  prayed  earnestly,  but  with  little  avail,  and  am 
driven  to  my  wits'  end.    What  can  I  do?" 

You  have  indeed  suffered  greatly ;  but  now  you  must 
make  up  your  mind  to  suffer  no  more.  You  must  take 
courage  and  make  a  firm  stand.  The  power  of  these 
dead  people  over  you  is  only  in  your  fear  of  them.  Your 
own  will  is  stronger  than  all  theirs  combined  if  you 
will  only  know  that  it  is ;  if  you  turn  upon  them  with 
vigor  and  determination  they  must  yield  before  you. 
You  have  an  inalienable  right  to  the  undisturbed  use 
of  your  own  vehicles,  and  you  should  insist  on  being 
left  in  peace.  You  would  not  tolerate  an  intrusion  of 
filthy  and  disgusting  beings  into  your  house  on  the 
physical  plane ;  why  should  you  submit  to  it  because  the 
entities  happen  to  be  astral?  If  an  indolent  tramp 
forces  himself  into  a  man's  house,  the  owner  does  not 
kneel  down  and  pray — he  kicks  the  tramp  out;  and 
that  is  precisely  what  you  must  do  with  these  astral 
tramps. 

You  will  no  doubt  say  to  yourself  that  when  I  give 
you  this  advice  I  do  not  know  the  terrible  power  of 
the  particular  demons  who  are  afflicting  you.  That  is 
exactly  what  they  would  like  you  to  believe — what  they 


314  THE  INNER  LIFE 

will  try  to  make  you  believe ;  but  do  not  be  so  foolish  as 
to  listen  to  them.  I  know  the  type  perfectly,  and  mean, 
despicable,  bullying  villains  they  are ;  they  will  torment 
a  weak  woman  for  months  together,  but  will  fly  in 
cowardly  terror  the  moment  you  turn  upon  them  in 
righteous  anger!  I  should  just  laugh  at  them,  but  I 
would  drive  them  out,  and  hold  not  a  moment's  parley 
with  them.  Of  course  they  will  bluster  and  show  fight, 
because  you  have  let  them  have  their  own  way  for  so 
long  that  they  will  not  tamely  submit  to  expulsion ;  but 
face  them  with  iron  determination,  set  your  will  against 
them  like  an  immovable  rock,  and  down  they  will  go. 
Say  to  them :  "I  am  a  spark  of  the  divine  fire,  and  by 
the  power  of  the  God  within  me  I  order  you  to  depart !" 
Never  let  yourself  think  for  an  instant  of  the  possi- 
bility of  failure  or  of  yielding;  God  is  within  you,  and 
God  cannot  fail. 

The  fact  of  their  demanding  meat  shows  what  low 
and  coarse  entities  they  are ;  you  should  avoid  all  flesh- 
food  and  alcohol,  because  these  things  minister  to  such 
evil  beings  and  make  it  more  difficult  for  you  to  resist 
them. 

The  third  question  is :  "If  it  is  possible  for  a  man  to 
become  obsessed  while  he  has  temporarily  lost  control 
of  his  body  during  a  fit  of  anger,  is  it  not  also  possible 
for  obsession  to  take  place  when  one  is  out  of  the  body 
during  sleep?" 

I  would  submit  that  the  circumstances  are  entirely 
different.  Sleep  is  a  natural  condition,  and  though  the 
ego  leaves  the  body,  he  always  maintains  a  close  con- 
nection with  it,  so  that  under  ordinary  circumstances 
he  would  quickly  be  recalled  to  it  by  any  attempt  that 
might  be  made  upon  it.  There  are  individual  cases  in 
which  the  ego  is  not  so  easily  recalled,  and  a  sort  of 
temporary  obsession  is  possible  which  may  cause  som- 


SLEEP  315 

nambulism,  but  these  cases  are  abnormal  and  compara- 
tively rare.  A  fit  of  anger  on  the  other  hand  is  unnat- 
ural— an  infraction  of  the  natural  laws  under  which  we 
live.  In  this  case  it  is  the  astral  which  has  escaped 
from  control ;  the  desire-elemental  has  rebelled  against 
his  master  and  has  broken  away  from  the  hold  of  the 
ego  exercised  through  the  mental  body,  which  alone 
keeps  him  safe  as  part  of  an  astral  mechanism.  The 
rightful  owner  being  dispossessed,  the  astral  body  is  in 
the  condition  of  a  vessel  whose  helm  has  been  aban- 
doned ;  anyone  who  happens  to  be  at  hand  can  seize  the 
wheel,  and  it  may  be  a  difficult  matter  to  recover  it. 


Sleep 


I  am  asked  what  is  the  real  cause  of  sleep. 

I  have  not  the  detailed  physiological  knowledge 
which  is  needed  to  answer  this  question  fully.  But  I 
have  always  understood  that  the  necessity  of  sleep  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  bodies  grow  tired  of  one  an- 
other. The  astral  vehicle,  which  so  far  as  we  know  is 
practically  incapable  of  fatigue  upon  its  own  plane, 
since  it  can  work  incessantly  for  twenty  years  without 
showing  signs  of  it,  very  soon  becomes  tired  of  the 
heavy  labour  of  moving  the  particles  of  the  physical 
brain,  and  needs  a  considerable  period  of  separation 
from  it  to  enable  it  to  gather  strength  to  resume  the 
irksome  task. 

The  physical  body,  on  its  side,  also  becomes  worn 
out,  because  while  it  is  in  a  waking  condition  it  is  al- 
ways spending  force  a  little  faster  than  it  can  draw 
it  in.  With  every  thought  or  feeling,  and  with  every 
muscular   exertion,   certain   slight   chemical    changes 


316  THE  INNER  LIFE 

appear  to  take  place.  The  ordinary  machinery  of  a 
healthy  body  is  all  the  while  working  to  counteract  this 
change  and  to  restore  the  condition  previously  existing, 
but  in  this  it  never  quite  succeeds.  So  that  with  every 
thought  or  action  there  is  a  slight,  almost  imperceptible 
loss,  and  the  cumulative  effect  eventually  leaves  the 
physical  body  too  exhausted  to  be  capable  of  further 
thought  or  work.  In  some  cases  even  a  few  moments 
of  sleep  will  give  the  recuperative  powers  an  oppor- 
tunity to  reassert  themselves  and  regain  the  ground 
that  they  have  lost,  thus  restoring  the  balance  suffi- 
ciently to  enable  the  machine  to  go  on  working. 

Students  often  ask  what  is  the  best  time  for  sleep. 
Unquestionably  the  rule  of  nature  is  that  the  day  is  for 
work  and  the  night  is  for  rest,  and  no  infringement  of 
nature's  laws  can  ever  be  a  good  thing.  One  of  the 
serious  evils  of  our  modern  unnatural  life  is  that  noon 
is  no  longer,  as  it  should  be,  the  centre  of  the  day. 
If  a  man  lived  by  himself  and  could  regulate  his 
own  affairs  he  could,  no  doubt,  return  at  once  to  that 
obviously  natural  condition ;  but,  surrounded  as  we  are 
by  a  mighty  so-called  civilization  which  is  in  many 
ways  distorted  and  unnatural,  we  are  unable  to  follow 
our  individual  predilections  in  this  matter,  and  must  to 
some  extent  adapt  ourselves  to  the  general  custom,  evil 
though  it  be. 

It  is  impossible  to  lay  down  rules  as  to  the  amount  of 
sleep  which  is  necessary  for  man,  because  there  is  so 
much  difference  in  constitutions ;  but  when  it  is  possi- 
ble that  sleep  should  be  taken  between  8  P.  M.  and 
5  A.  M.  Some  men  need  the  whole  of  that  time,  while 
others  may  find  themselves  perfectly  healthy  on  a 
smaller  allowance.  Such  details  of  life  each  man  must 
decide  for  himself  according  to  his  circumstances. 

People  often  ask  whether  there  is  any  way  in  which 


SLEEP  31? 

they  can  control  their  dreams.  The  dreamer  cannot 
usually  change  the  course  of  his  dream  while  it  is  go- 
ing on ;  but  the  dream-life  can  indirectly  be  controlled 
to  a  very  considerable  extent.  If  a  man's  thought  be 
pure  and  high  while  waking,  his  dreams  will  be  pure 
and  good  also,  and  a  specially  important  point  is  that 
his  last  thought  as  he  sinks  to  sleep  should  be  a  noble 
and  elevating  one,  since  that  strikes  the  keynote  which 
largely  determines  the  nature  of  the  dreams  which 
follow.  An  evil  or  impure  thought  draws  round  the 
thinker  evil  and  impure  influences,  attracts  to  him  all 
the  gross  and  loathsome  creatures  who  come  near  him. 
These  will,  in  turn,  react  upon  his  mind  and  his  astral 
body,  and  disturb  his  rest  by  awakening  all  kinds  of 
low  and  earthly  desires.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  a  man 
enters  the  portals  of  sleep  with  his  mind  fixed  upon 
high  and  holy  things,  he  thereby  draws  round  him  the 
elementals  created  by  like  efforts  in  others ;  his  rest  is 
peaceful,  his  mind  open  to  impressions  from  above  and 
closed  to  those  from  below,  for  he  has  set  it  working  in 
the  right  direction. 

The  dreaming  of  ordinary  events  does  not  interfere 
with  astral  work,  because  that  dreaming  is  all  taking 
place  in  the  physical  brain,  while  the  real  man  is  away 
attending  to  other  business.  Of  course  if  the  man, 
when  out  in  his  astral  body,  devotes  himself  to  thinking 
over  the  events  of  his  physical  life,  he  will  be  unable 
during  the  time  of  such  thought  to  do  any  other  work, 
but  that  is  a  totally  different  thing  from  a  mere  ordi- 
nary dream  of  the  physical  brain,  though  when  the  man 
wakes  in  the  morning  it  is  frequently  difficult  for  him 
to  distinguish  between  the  two  sets  of  recollections. 
It  really  does  not  matter  what  the  physical  brain  does 
so  long  as  it  keeps  itself  free  from  impure  thoughts,  but 
it  is  undesirable  that  the  man  himself  should  waste  his 


318  THE  INNER  LIFE 

time  in  introspection  when  he  might  be  working  on  the 
astral  plane. 

Somnambulism 

You  ask  what  is  the  cause  of  sleep-walking.  I  have 
never  had  the  opportunity  of  observing  a  case  of  som- 
nambulism, so  I  am  unable  to  speak  from  direct  knowl- 
edge ;  but  from  reading  accounts  of  such  cases  I  should 
imagine  that  the  phenomena  may  be  produced  by  sev- 
eral widely  different  causes.  There  are  instances  in 
which  it  appears  that  the  ego  is  able  to  act  more  di- 
rectly upon  his  physical  body  during  the  absence  of  the 
intermediate  mental  and  astral  vehicles — instances  in 
which  a  man  during  his  sleep  is  able  to  write  poetry 
or  to  paint  pictures  which  would  be  far  beyond  his 
powers  when  awake. 

There  are  other  cases  in  which  it  is  obvious  that  the 
dim  consciousness  inherent  in  the  physical  body  is 
working  uncontrolled  by  the  man  himself,  so  that  it 
performs  quite  meaningless  acts,  or  carries  out  to  some 
extent  the  idea  which  was  dominant  in  the  mind  before 
falling  asleep.  To  this  class  belong  the  stories  of  serv- 
ants who  have  risen  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to  light 
the  fire,  of  ostlers  who  have  harnessed  horses  in  their 
sleep,  and  so  on. 

Again,  there  are  cases  in  which  some  outside  intelli- 
gence, whether  incarnate  or  discarnate,  has  seized  upon 
the, body  of  a  sleeping  man  and  used  it  for  his  own 
ends.  This  would  be  most  likely  to  happen  with  a  per- 
son who  is  what  is  called  mediumistic — that  is  to  say, 
whose  principles  are  more  loosely  joined  together  than 
usual,  and  therefore  more  readily  separable ;  but  oddly 
enough  there  seems  to  be  a  type  of  somnambulism 
which  is  due  to  a  directly  opposite  condition,  when  the 


THE  PHYSICAL  BODY  319 

principles  fit  more  tightly  than  usual,  so  that  when  the 
man  would  naturally  visit  some  neighboring  spot  in  his 
astral  body,  he  takes  the  physical  body  along  with  him 
as  well,  because  he  is  not  wholly  dissociated  from  it. 
Somnambulism  is  probably  also  connected  with  the 
whole  complex  problem  of  the  various  layers  of  con- 
sciousness in  man,  which  under  perfectly  normal  cir- 
cumstances are  unable  to  manifest  themselves. 


The  Physical  Body 

Physical  immortality  is  not  a  possibility,  for  that 
which  has  a  beginning  must  also  have  an  end,  and 
birth,  growth,  decay  and  death  are  the  rules  of  the 
physical  universe.  No  reasonable  being  could  desire 
to  retain  the  same  body  continuously ;  it  is  precisely  as 
though  a  small  child  should  wish  to  wear  the  same 
suit  of  clothes  during  the  whole  of  his  life.  As  man 
evolves,  his  successive  vehicles  will  become  purer  and 
nobler,  and  better  fitted  to  meet  the  needs  of  his  in- 
creasing capacity,  so  that  even  if  a  man  could  keep  the 
same  body  he  would  check  his  growth  by  doing  so,  just 
as  the  child's  growth  would  be  checked  by  always  wear- 
ing something  of  iron  rigidity  which  was  much  too 
tight  for  him. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  our  duty  to  take  the  best  pos- 
sible care  of  our  bodies  and  to  improve  them  as  much  as 
we  can.  Never  ill-treat  the  physical  body.  Take  care 
of  it  as  you  would  of  a  valuable  horse,  giving  it  enough 
rest  and  food,  and  keeping  it  scrupulously  clean.  It  can 
do  only  a  certain  amount  of  work ;  for  example,  a  very 
strong  body  might  walk  a  hundred  miles  without  rest- 
ing, but  it  could  not  walk  a  thousand.    In  meditation 


320  THE  INNER  LIFE 

put  it  into  a  comfortable  position  and  then  forget  about 
it.  You  cannot  forget  it  if  it  is  uncomfortable,  as  it 
would  constantly  call  you  back. 

What  should  you  eat?  Well,  so  long  as  you  avoid 
alcohol  and  corpse-eating  it  probably  does  not  matter 
very  much.  Certain  vegetables  are  coarser  than  others, 
and  therefore  when  there  is  a  choice  it  is  as  well  to 
abstain  from  them.  Among  those  I  should  class  onions, 
mushrooms  and  cabbages.  Rice  is  very  pure  food,  but 
wheat,  barley  and  oats  give  more  nutriment  in  the 
same  amount.  I  consider  eggs  undesirable,  though  I 
should  unhesitatingly  take  them  if  no  other  food  was 
to  be  had. 

There  is  no  sort  of  question  that  vegetarianism  is 
better  in  every  way  than  the  devouring  of  flesh.  It 
furnishes  more  real  nutriment,  diminishes  the  liability 
to  disease,  gives  greater  strength,  and  does  not  stimu- 
late the  lower  nature.  The  vegetarian  diet  makes  it 
far  easier  for  a  man  to  develop  his  higher  qualities. 
It  is  known  that  our  Masters  make  a  single  physical 
body  last  much  longer  than  an  ordinary  man  can  do,  by 
living  always  in  accordance  with  hygienic  laws  and  by 
absolute  freedom  from  worry.  In  that  respect  we 
should  all  try  to  copy  them  as  nearly  as  we  can,  but 
to  endeavour  to  retain  the  same  body  indefinitely  has 
always  been  a  mark  of  those  who  follow  the  selfish 
path. 

There  are  various  undesirable  means  by  which  such 
men  have  prolonged  physical  life — sometimes  by  vam- 
pirism, merely  depleting  the  vitality  of  others,  and 
sometimes  by  the  complete  transference  to  themselves 
of  a  succession  of  other  human  lives.  But  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  warn  Theosophists  against  proceedings 
of  this  nature.  It  is  obvious  that  a  person  adopting 
such  a  plan  would  be  one  who  is  not  evolving;  and 


TOBACCO  AND  ALCOHOL  321 

even  if  he  succeeded  he  would  only  be  as  it  were  patch- 
ing and  enlarging  an  old  coat,  but  with  all  his  efforts 
it  would  remain  an  old  coat  still. 


Tobacco  and  Alcohol 

The  evil  effect  of  the  tobacco  habit  is  obvious  in  the 
physical,  the  astral  and  the  mental  bodies.  It  permeates 
the  man  physically  with  exceedingly  impure  particles, 
causing  emanations  so  material  that  they  are  fre- 
quently perceptible  to  the  sense  of  smell.  Astrally,  it 
not  only  introduces  impurity,  but  it  also  tends  to 
deaden  many  of  the  vibrations,  and  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  it  is  frequently  found  to  "soothe  the  nerves,"  as 
it  is  called.  But,  of  course,  for  occult  progress  we  do 
not  want  the  vibrations  deadened  nor  the  astral  body 
weighed  down  with  foul  and  poisonous  particles.  We 
need  the  capacity  of  answering  instantly  to  all  possi- 
ble vibrations,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  we  must  have 
perfect  control,  so  that  these  desires  shall  be  as  horses 
guided  by  the  intelligent  mind  to  draw  us  where  we 
will,  not  to  run  away  with  us  wildly,  and  carry  us  into 
situations  where  our  higher  nature  knows  that  it  ought 
never  to  be  found.  Therefore,  for  any  person  who  is 
really  anxious  to  develop  his  vehicles,  tobacco  is  un- 
doubtedly a  bad  thing. 

Also  it  has  a  singularly  deteriorating  influence  upon 
the  man  on  the  physical  plane.  It  is  absolutely  the  only 
thing,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  a  gentleman  will  deliber- 
ately do  when  he  knows  it  to  be  offensive  to  others. 
But  the  hold  which  this  noxious  habit  gains  upon  its 
slaves  appears  to  be  so  great  that  they  are  utterly  in- 
capable of  resisting  it,  and  all  their  gentlemanly  in- 


322  THE  INNER  LIFE 

stincts  are  forgotten  in  this  mad  and  horrible  selfish- 
ness. The  effect  on  the  astral  body  after  death  is  also 
very  bad ;  the  man  is  shut  up  for  a  long  time  as  though 
in  prison,  and  higher  vibrations  cannot  reach  him. 

The  chief  objection  which  is  always  brought  by  the 
more  self-indulgent  Theosophist  against  remarks  such 
as  these  is  that  our  great  founder  Madame  Blavatsky 
herself  smoked.  I  know  this  to  be  true,  but  it  does  not 
in  the  least  alter  the  facts  which  I  have  stated  above, 
which  I  know  just  as  surely  from  long-continued  per- 
sonal observation.  Madame  Blavatsky  was  in  every 
way  so  entirely  sui  generis,  so  emphatically  a  case 
apart,  that  I  do  not  think  it  reasonable  for  us  to  pre- 
sume that  we  can  safely  do  what  she  did.  I  have  often 
heard  her  say:  "No  one  but  my  Master  understands 
my  case ;  do  what  I  tell  you,  not  what  I  do."  Also  she 
once  told  me  that  she  smoked  incessantly  "to  quiet  the 
vibrations  of  this  old  body,  and  prevent  it  from  shak- 
ing itself  to  pieces."  The  effects  on  the  physical  plane 
during  life  and  on  the  astral  after  death  are  precisely 
as  I  have  described  them,  and  it  does  not  seem  worth 
while  incurring  them  for  the  sake  of  a  petty  indul- 
gence. 

I  think  that  Mrs.  Besant's  remarks  about  alcohol  in 
Man  and  His  Bodies  are  fully  justified.  There  is  no 
doubt  whatever  that  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  as- 
tral and  mental  bodies  its  use  is  always  an  evil;  and 
there  is  also  no  doubt  at  all  that  very  undesirable  enti- 
ties are  attracted  by  it.  Of  course  many  people  who  are 
estimable  in  other  respects  have  certain  most  unpleas- 
ant habits,  such  as  the  drinking  of  alcohol,  the  eating  of 
meat  or  the  smoking  of  tobacco ;  but  the  fact  that  they 
are  otherwise  good  people  does  not  make  these  things 
good  and  sensible.  It  is,  of  course,  untrue  that  any 
of  these  things  are  physical  necessities,  but  a  man  may 


TOBACCO  AND  ALCOHOL  323 

accustom  his  system  to  the  use  of  almost  any  kind  of 
drug,  until  that  system,  being  habituated  to  it,  expects 
it  and  misses  it  if  it  does  not  get  it.  We  know  that 
exactly  the  same  habit  may  be  set  up  with  opium  and 
arsenic,  but  that  does  not  make  opium  and  arsenic  good 
things  to  take.  It  is,  however,  generally  quite  useless 
to  attempt  to  argue  with  any  man  as  to  his  personal 
habits ;  he  is  usually  determined  to  cling  to  such  habits 
because  he  likes  them,  and  he  cares  very  little  whether 
they  are  good  in  themselves,  or  even  good  for  him. 

You  ask  my  opinion  about  the  regulation  of  the  sale 
of  liquor.  In  all  civilized  countries  some  control  is 
exercised  over  the  sale  of  poisons,  and  they  are  allowed 
to  be  supplied  only  upon  a  doctor's  certificate.  The 
poison  of  alcohol  does  many  thousands  of  times  more 
harm  than  all  other  poisons  put  together,  so  surely  the 
regulations  governing  its  sale  ought  to  be  no  less  strict. 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  every  man  will  have  to  de- 
velop self-control  for  himself,  but  I  really  do  not  see 
how  that  affects  our  attitude  with  regard  to  the  making 
of  laws.  You  surely  would  not  suggest  that  in  order 
to  teach  people  not  to  steal,  we  should  continually  at 
every  street  corner  throw  in  their  way  special  tempta- 
tions to  induce  them  to  steal,  and  then  stand  by  without 
any  interference  to  see  whether  they  would  develop 
sufficient  strength  of  mind  to  resist  our  temptations. 

Yet  that  is  exactly  what  is  now  being  done  with  re- 
gard to  the  consumption  of  alcohol.  We  allow,  en- 
courage and  specially  license  a  number  of  men  to  make 
a  tempting  display  in  our  streets  with  the  avowed  ob- 
ject of  trying  to  induce  as  many  people  as  possible 
to  degrade  themselves  by  the  habitual  use  of  this 
poison.  If  at  last  mankind  is  so  far  evolving  as  to  de- 
velop some  sort  of  conscience  with  regard  to  the  weaker 
brethren,  it  would  seem  well  for  us  to  encourage  their 


324  THE  INNER  LIFE 

advancement  rather  than  to  range  ourselves  against  it. 
If  we  feel  it  right  to  care  for  and  to  help  the  insane, 
even  to  the  extent  of  restraining  them  for  their  own 
good  and  for  that  of  the  public,  it  is  surely  well  for  us 
also  to  treat  the  victim  of  that  terrible  form  of  in- 
sanity known  as  drunkenness  along  exactly  the  same 
lines.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Theo- 
sophical  Society  takes  no  part  whatever  in  any  political 
movement,  although  of  course  its  members  as  private 
individuals  are  perfectly  free  to  take  any  side  that 
they  like  in  political  questions. 


INDEX 


Accident,  effect  of,  on  astral 
plane,  286. 

Achievement,  without  helping 
others,  70. 

Adept,  definition  of,  19;  not 
ambitious,  190;  removing 
suffering,  237;  use  of  term, 
19;  future,  203. 

Adeptship  and  rebirth,  71;  at- 
tainment of,  59. 

Adi-Buddha,  109. 

Advanced  people,  simple  in 
habits,  177. 

Advantages  of  travel,  164. 

Advice,  astral,  42. 

Adyar,  no  resistance  to  thought 
forms  in,  237. 

Affection,  double  result  of,  55. 

Agni,  invocation  to,  133. 

Agrae,  mysteries  of,  79. 

Akoustikoi,  or  hearers,  86. 

Alcohol,  drinking,  179;  effect 
of,  on  atomic  web,  306;  evil 
of,  322;  regulation  of,  323; 
use  of,  and  obsession,  314. 

Alcyone,  seventeenth  life  of, 
231. 

Alone  in  space,  280. 

Ambition,  intensification  of, 
300. 

Ambitious,  adept  cannot  be, 
190;  man,  condition  of,  82. 

Ananda,  disciple  of  Buddha, 
112. 

Anger,  obsession  during  fit  of, 
314. 

Animals,  attaining  individual- 
ity, 70;  carnivorous,  198; 
cruelty,  197;  destruction  to 
be  avoided,  199;  domestic,  to 
be  trained,  196;  entering  hu- 
man kingdom,  267;  fear  of, 
for  man,   199;    ill-treatment 


of,  197;  in  Atlantean  days, 
198;  individualizing,  197;  in 
Lemuria,  198;  not  to  develop 
ferocity  in,  197;  our  duty  to, 
196;  slaughter  of,  for  food, 
199;  work  of  Atlanteans  for, 
199. 

Annihilation,  Nirvana  not,  107. 

Apollonius  of  Tyana,  13,  21. 

Apophthegms  of  the  mysteries, 
77. 

Apostles,  the  twelve,  119. 

Apotheosis  of  humanity,  95. 

Arhat,  59. 

Arhatship,  60. 

Ariadne,  myth  of,  79. 

Aryans,  134. 

Aryasangha,  163. 

Asceticism,  176;  meaning  of 
word,  176;  of  black  magician, 
282. 

Asekha,  achievement  of,  4; 
consciousness  of  the,  19. 

Aspiration,  173. 

Association,  with  Masters,  29, 
32;  with  teachers,  32. 

Astral  advice,  42. 

Astral  Bodies,  effect  of  inter- 
penetration  of,  236;  pass 
through  each  other,  235. 

Astral  Body,  after  death,  263; 
and  evil  qualities,  170;  and 
good  qualities,  170;  appear- 
ance of,  with  clairvoyant 
vision,  258;  colours  in,  182; 
during  life,  263;  effect  of  irri- 
tation on,  184;  effect  of  to- 
bacco on,  322;  has  no  sense 
of  touch,  234;  has  no  sense 
organs,  254,  294;  incapable 
of  fatigue,  314;  in  concentric 
shells,  237;  influence  of 
thought  upon,  255;  need  not 
eat,  257;  result  of  shock  to, 
306;    retains   its   form,   254; 


325 


326 


INDEX 


seen  clairvoyantly,  182; 
sense  organs  in,  263;  shelling 
of,  2:57;  symbolized  by  fawn 
skin,  79;  vibrations  in,  L82; 
what  it  ought  to  be.  182; 
working  of  senses  in,  294. 

Astral  Centres,  292. 

Astral  Consciousness,  21 

Astral  Counterpart,  233,  234; 
of  physical  body,  254,  256. 

Astral  Disturbance,  causing 
nervous  troubles,   L83. 

Astral  Effect  of  cry,  286. 

Astral  Inflammation,  184. 

Astral  Matter,  attraction  of 
physical,  2.">:>;  corresponds  to 
physical,  233;  drawn  round 
himself  by  descending  ego, 
253;  luminosity  of,  236; 
never  solid,  235,  254. 

Astral  Objects,  moving  of,  256. 

Astral  Palsy,  183. 

Astral  Plane,  67;  accident  on, 
236;  currents  on,  237;  effect 
of  action  seen  on,  265;  ex- 
tends to  Moon's  orbit,  229; 
gravitation  on,  231,  6;  inter- 
penetration  of  matter  on, 
236;  its  extent,  228;  liability 
to  error  on,  67;  light  from 
Sun  on,  236;  penetrability  of, 
235;  reflection  of  the  budd- 
hic,  225;  service  on,  237; 
sixth  and  seventh  sub- 
planes  of,  231;  tests  applied 
on,  67;  the  astral  body  of  the 
earth,  228;  the  world  of  illu- 
sion, 67;  twenty-five  years 
on,  257. 

Astral  Pressure,  233. 

Astral  Revelations,  40,  41. 

Astral  Sight,  development  of, 
214. 

Astral  Teachers,  39. 

Astral  Tramps,  313. 

Astral  Vibrations,  communi- 
cated, 183. 

Astral  Work,  effect  of  atmos- 
pheric and  climatic  condi- 
tions on,  237. 

Astral  World,  never  dark,  236. 

Athanasian  creed,  224. 


Athlete,  disciple  analogous  to, 
62. 

Atlanteans,  knowledge  of,  139. 

Atlantis,  animals  in,  L98. 

Atomic  sub-planes,  impressions 
between, 

Atomic  web,  305;  effect  of  cof- 
fee on,  306;  effect  of  tea  on, 
306;  injury  to,  305,  300. 

Atoms,  permanent,  59;  perma- 
nent astral,  mental,  170;  the 
four  permanent,  226. 

Attainment  of  perfection,  69. 

Attitude  toward  children,  our, 
201. 

Augoeides,  of  Masters,  222. 

Aura,  colours  of,  133. 

Auric  egg,  225. 

Austerity,  of  the  mind,  181; 
unintelligent,  176. 

Avalokiteshwara,  110. 

Avitchi,  281. 

B 

Bacchus,  toys  of,  85;  worship 

of,  76. 
Balance,  212. 
Baptism,  270. 
Belief  in  ceremonial  one  of  the 

fetters,  123;  real,  depends  on 

knowledge,  51,  121. 
Besant,  Mrs.,  Masters  speaking 

through,  33;  on  alcohol,  322; 

quoted,  64,   195;   saving  her 

present  Teacher's  life,  39. 
Betrayal  of  secrets,  72. 
Bhagavad  Gita,  quoted,  65,  94, 

177,  180. 
Bhur,  Bhuvar,  Svar,  ceremony 

described,  131. 
Bible,  Christian,  114,  118. 
Bigotry,    in    Christian    Church 

utilised,  153. 
Black  magician,  127,  129,  280, 

222. 
Blavatsky,  Madame,  9,  18,  52; 

and    smoking,    322;    quoted, 

65;    on    auric    egg,   225;    on 

force  centres,  286;  on  pineal 

gland   294;   on   Spiritualism, 

135. 
Blind  faith,  117. 


INDEX 


327 


Bodhisattva,  work  of  the  8,  109. 

Bodies,  fourth  round,  64;  inner, 
of  the  Buddha,  103. 

Body,  astral,  colours  in  259; 
not  susceptible  to  fatigue, 
258;  permanent  colours  in, 
means  persistent  vibration, 
259. 

Body,  casual,  260;  shows  man's 
stage,  260;  thought  or  feel- 
ing that  can  produce  an 
effect  in,  260;  used  by  adept, 
260. 

Body,  pituitary,  293. 

Body,  physical,  319;  care  of, 
319. 

Bodhi  tree,  133. 

Book,  oldest  in  the  world,  138. 

Bocks,  not  perfect,  157. 

Brahmajala  Sutta,  106. 

Brahmans,  98. 

Brain,  cells,  and  corresponding 
astral  and  mental  matter, 
311;  in  sleep,  317. 

Brotherhood,  147,  267;  Hima- 
layan or  Thibetan,  3;  of  the 
T.  S.,  14;  the,  72;  Great 
White,  3,  6,  14,  36,  54,  61,  84, 
128,  153,  138,  214,  283. 

Brothers  not  equal,  148. 

Brutality,  casual,  265. 

Buddha,  a,  8,  97. 

Buddha  and  Ananda,  226. 

Buddha,  initiation  of  the,  8. 

Buddha,  the  Lord  Gautama,  8, 
97;  aura  of,  103;  affirms  the 
ego,  106;  advice  of,  about 
Absolute,  129;  inner  bodies 
of,  103;  numerous  arhats  of, 
102;  of  the  fourth  race,  102; 
personality  of,  101;  preach- 
ing of,  101;  teachers  contem- 
poraneous with,  114;  teach- 
ing of,  98,  129,  190. 

Buddhas,  221;  before  Gautama, 
8;  future,  203. 

Buddhi,  on  nirvanic  plane,  224. 

Buddhic  consciousness,  226, 
227;  emotions  reflected  in  as- 
tral, 212. 

Buddhic  plane,  229;  body  being 
formed  on,  149;  functioning 


on,  226;  gaining  experience 
of  others  on,  227;  its  extent, 
239;  reflected  in  astral,  226. 

Buddhic  vehicle,  60. 

Buddhism,  97;  a  living  influ- 
ence, 103;  common  sense  of, 
100;  effect  of,  on  Hinduism, 
101;  mnemonics  of,  101; 
Northern  and  Southern,  104; 
not  a  new  religion,  97;  the 
best  books  on,  104. 

Building  up  individuality,  49. 

C 

California,  developing  of  clair- 
voyance in,  237. 

Carelessness  of  ego,  280. 

Carnivorous  mammalia,  198. 

Castes,  98,  133;  why  colours 
attributed  to,  133. 

Casual  brutality,  265. 

Cataclysms,  128. 

Casual  Body,  23,  55,  60;  build- 
ing qualities  into,  170;  con- 
stitution of,  270;  hardening 
of,  284;  has  three  parts,  271; 
loss  of,  284. 

Centre  of  my  circle,  191. 

Centres,  astral,  292;  of  force, 
286;  of  force,  effect  of  arous- 
ing, 292,  294. 

Ceremonial,  123;  reliance  on, 
one  of  the  fetters,  123. 

Ceremonies,  effective  and  in- 
effective, 130. 

Certainty  of  ultimate  good,  48. 

Chain,  one  buddhic  body  for, 
230. 

Chakrams,  the  seven,  286. 

Change,  fear  of,  63. 

Changing  World,  The,  20. 

Character,  formation  of,  57. 

Charity,  159. 

Children  not  easily  obsessed, 
309;  old  souls  in  new  bodies, 
201;  of  the  fire-mist,  7;  our 
attitude  towards,  201. 

Christ,  advent  of  the,  20,  22, 
103,  151;  and  St.  John,  226; 
explaining  parables  to  dis- 
ciples,  74;    inner  bodies   of, 


328 


INDEX 


103;  on  seonian  condemna- 
tion, 270;  teaching  of,  269; 
the  Lord  Maitreya,  10;  work 
of  the,  19. 

Christian  Church  and  Gnostic 
writers,  74;  divisions,  115; 
mysteries  in,  74;  philosophy 
of,  115. 

Christian  Creed,  the,  88. 

Christian,  monks  destroying 
manuscripts,  75;  scriptures, 
contradictions  in,  114. 

Christianity,  choice  of  a  sect, 
115;  magic  in,  123;  The- 
osophy  explains,  117;  The- 
osophy  not  opposed  to,  114; 
variants  of,  115. 

Christs,  221. 

Church,  Fathers,  75;  Roman 
Catholic,  122. 

Circle,  centre  of  mv,  191. 

City  of  the  Golden  Gate,  139. 

Clairvoyant  magnification,  296. 

Coffee,  effect  of,  on  atomic  web, 
306. 

Colours,  in  the  astral  body,  259. 

Colour  prejudice,  164. 

Common  Sense,  147;  of  Budd- 
hism, 100. 

Confucius,  114. 

Consciousness,  astral  and  men- 
tal, 285;  buddhic,  includes 
that  of  others,  226,  227;  de- 
velopment of,  48,  245;  focus 
of,  285;  each  a  centre  of,  221; 
identification  with  animals, 
210;  identifying  the,  with 
plant  and  animal  life,  210; 
layers  of,  in  somnambulism, 
319;  of  ego,  centre  of,  passes 
to  higher  planes,  223;  one 
only,  241 ;  raising  the,  to  ego, 
59;  rending  veil  between 
stages  of,  245;  three  possi- 
bilities of  moving,  96. 

Consecration  of  the  host,  123. 

Consummation,  final,  223. 

Continuity  of  purpose  in  future 
lives,  59. 

Control,  of  body,  176;  of  mind, 
211;  of  passions,  265;  of 
thought,  214. 


Co-operation,  203. 

Corpse  eating,  320. 

Cosmic  influences,  140. 

Counterpart,  astral,  233;  men- 
tal plane,  connection  with, 
96. 

Counterparts,  253. 

Co-workers  with  the  Masters, 
15. 

Creed,  Athanasian,  224. 

Creeds,  rational  interpretation 
of,  115. 

Critical  points  in  evolution,  54. 

Criticism,  159;  of  self,  160; 
real  meaning  of,  161;  the 
higher,  117;  when  useless, 
161. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  160. 

Crookes,  lemniscates  of,  232. 

Cross,  the  Greek,  137;  the 
Latin,  138;  the  Maltese,  137; 
symbolism  of  the,  138,  289. 

Crucibles,  disciples  are,  64. 

Cruelty,  effect  of,  265;  to  ani- 
mals, 197. 

Crustaceans,  mental,  62. 

Cry,  astral,  effect  of,  286. 

Curiosity,  a  disease,  167. 

Currents,  astral,  237 


D 


Damnation,  seonian,  270. 

Danger,  of  experiment,  301;  of 
indiscriminate  psychic  devel- 
opment, 44. 

Day  of  life,  a,  204. 

Dead,  the,  in  heaven  life,  230; 
on  astral,  231. 

Death,  a  temporary  absence, 
202;  fear  of,  201;  loss  of 
matter  after,  263;  not  a  loss, 
202. 

Decad,  perfect  man,  a,  69. 

Deities,  images  of  Indian,  130. 

Deity,  all  prayers  reach,  126. 

Demons,  cowardly,  314. 

Depression,  181;  cause  of,  250; 
effect  of,  on  meditation,  45; 
to  be  disregarded,  173. 

Descent  into  matter,  the,  47. 

Desertion,  result  of,  154. 


INDEX 


329 


Desire,  killing:  out,  189,  206;  on 
astral  plane,  257;  purifica- 
tion of,  189. 

Desire,  elemental,  260;  action 
of,  on  astral  body  after 
death,  259;  action  of,  on 
higher  bodies,  264;  afraid  of 
dissolution,  263;  exact  copy 
of  astral  body  of  last  life, 
263;  not  yourself,  263. 

Desires,  transmutation  of,  189. 

Destruction,  not  evil,  128. 

Deterioration  of  character  due 
to  hardening  of  atomic  web, 
307. 

Devas,  143;  illumination  from, 
213. 

Development,  certain  for  all, 
54;  doctrine  of,  122;  of  astral 
sight,  214;  of  consciousness, 
47,  244;  of  faculty,  53;  of 
will,  211;  psychic,  44;  sitting 
for,  306;  unequal,  260. 

Devil,  the,  126;  pacts  with,  127; 
personations  of,  127. 

Devotion,  double  result  of,  5. 

Diamond,  jubilee,  the,  152. 

Difficulties,  of  discipleship,  64, 
10. 

Dimension,  the  fourth,  141. 

Dimensions,  many,  230. 

Disciple,  full  of  joy,  63. 

Disciples,  crucibles  of  nature, 
64;  persecution  of,  65. 

Discipleship,  difficulties  of,  64, 
65;  three  stages  of,  35. 

Discomfort,  no  merit  in,  179. 
180;  when  may  have  use,  179. 

Discrimination,  160. 

Diseases,  nervous,  184. 

Dislike,  trifling  causes  of,  165. 

Distrust,  born  of  ignorance, 
164. 

Doctrine,  of  development,  122. 

Door,  shutting  of  the,  into  hu- 
manity, 268. 

Dreaming  and  astral  work, 
317. 

Dreams,  control  of,  317. 

Drones,  useless,  269. 

Drunkard,  condition  of,  81. 


Drunkenness,  effects  of,  307;  is 

insanity,  324. 
Dryness,  spiritual,  207. 
Duties,  not  rights,  160. 
Duty,    of    happiness,    181;    of 

silence,  168;  to  animals,  196. 
Dzyan,  Eook  of,  138. 
Dzyan,  Stanzas  of,  120. 


E 


Earth,  centre  of,  and  the  sun, 
232;  conditions  in  interior  of, 
231;  evolution  in  interior  of 
231;  forces  through  concen- 
tric layers  of,  232 ;  no  central 
shaft  through,  232. 

Eat,  what  we  should,  320. 

Effort,  never  lost,  206. 

Egg,  the  auris,  225. 

Ego,  action  of  Master  on,  247; 
activities  of,  on  own  plane, 
246;  advanced,  inconsider- 
ate of  his  body,  249;  affirmed 
by  the  Buddha,  105;  and  his 
vehicles,  240;  and  monad, 
222;  and  personality,  213, 
241;  and  personality,  channel 
between,  250;  appeal  to,  by 
repentance,  274;  attention 
of,  drawn  in  meditation,  248; 
building  theosophical  ideas 
into,  205;  calling  attention  of 
the,  252;  carelessness  of, 
280;  consciousness  of,  as  a 
conscious  entity,  242;  consti- 
tution of,  224;  control  of, 
over  fraction  in  personality, 
272;  co-operation  of,  with 
personality,  250;  descending 
into  lower  matter,  272;  does 
not  absolutely  exist,  106; 
effect  on,  by  meditation  and 
study,  247;  entanglement  in 
lower  matter,  273  et  se.; 
gaining  experience  from  per- 
sonality, 278;  glimpse  gained 
by,  of  past  and  future  incar- 
nations, 243,  251;  grasp  by, 
of  personality,  247;  growth 
of,  under  influence  of  Mas- 
ter,   246;    his    control,    272; 


330 


INDEX 


hope  of,  260;  how  to  bring 
down,  251;  in  brutality  sel- 
fish men,  274;  in  cases  of  in- 
sanity, 309;  inconsiderate  of 
body,  249;  in  early  stages, 
23;  in  materialistic  men,  274; 
in  meditation,  213;  in  sleep, 
314;  in  somnambulism,  318; 
knowledge  of  Master  by, 
252;  loss  by,  of  causal  body, 
284;  loss  of  personality  by, 
279;  Masters'  influence  upon, 
23;  no  lower  qualities  in,  170; 
not  to  be  judged  by  personal- 
ity, 249;  on  his  own  plane, 
242,  245,  250;  only  partially 
expressed  in  physical,  242; 
ousted  in  obsession,  309;  out 
of  current  of  evolution,  280; 
putting  forth  in  personality 
described,  272;  raising  the 
consciousness  to  the,  59; 
reaching  up  of,  248;  shut  out 
from  personality,  271;  spe- 
cial interest  of,  in  personal- 
ity, 248;  stages  of  response 
to  consciousness  by,  244;  the 
baby,  55;  the  spiritual  triad 
224;  the  yoga  of  an,  213 
throws  himself  back,  281 
wants  essence  of  experience, 
252;  watchfulness  of,  during 
physical  life,  251;  when 
gains  memory  of  past  lives, 
244;  will  come  down  to  help, 
252;  withdrawal  of,  from 
astral  after  death,  264;  with- 
drawal of,  into  higher  planes, 
224;  work  during  heaven- 
life,  252;  work  of,  on  own 
plane,  250. 

Egos,  proportion  of  successful, 
69. 

Eight-fold,    Path,    the     noble, 
101. 

Eighth  sphere,  281. 

Electricity,  a  force  of  the  Lo- 
gos, 298. 

Elemental,    physical,    in    chil- 
dren, 309;  the  desire,  260. 

Elemental  Essence,  see  Desire, 


Elemental;  does  not  know 
man,  261;  instinct  of,  261. 

Elementals,  drawn  round  body 
in  sleep,  317. 

Elements,  new,  manufacture 
of,  231. 

Emanation,  by  the  Logos,  rea- 
son for,  47;  from  the  divine, 
46. 

Emotion,  effect  of,  183. 

Enlarging,  the  self,  56. 

Entities,  astral,  accepting 
teaching  from,  42;  astral, 
ready  to  give  teaching,  41; 
pacts  with,  127. 

Epoptai,  83. 

Esoteric  section,  89. 

Eternal  justice,  100. 

Etheric  pressure,  232. 

Evil,  balanced  with  good,  275; 
destruction  not,  128;  effect 
of,  on  higher  matter,  275;  in- 
evitably transient,  48,  50; 
matter  not,  128;  meaning  of, 
128;  motives,  attribution  of, 
162;  no  hierarchy  of,  127; 
persistence  in,  211;  readiness 
to  believe,  161;  makes  vibra- 
tions in  coarse  matter,  275. 

Evolution,  delay  in,  269;  from 
the  Divine,  47;  of  the  world, 
154;  slow,  275;  three  critical 
points  in,  55;  what  it  is,  49. 

Evolutionary  period,  middle  of, 
70. 

Evolutions,  in  earth's  interior, 
231. 

Evolved  and  unevolved  man, 
difference  in  appearance  be- 
tween, on  astral  plane,  258. 

Experience,  227;  not  necessary 
for  ego  to  go  through  every, 
227;  of  personality,  given  to 
ego,  278;  of  another  gained 
on  buddhic  level,  227. 

Experiment,  dangers  of,  301. 

Extremes,  irrational,  99. 


Faculty,  development  of,  53. 
Failure,  impossibility  of,  59o 


INDEX 


331 


Failures,  of  the  fifth  round, 
267,  268;  of  the  moonchain, 
69. 

Falling  in  love,  191. 

Faith,  blind,  117. 

Fates,  possible  of  soul,  284. 

Fathers,  Church,  75. 

Fatigue,  astral  and  mental, 
257;  no  astral,  315. 

Fawn,  skin  of  a,  dress  in  mys- 
teries, 79. 

Fear,  of  change,  63;  of  death, 
201;  permits  obsession,  313. 

Feelings,  do  not  matter,  207; 
personal,  187. 

Fetters,  the  ten  great,  60. 

Fiery  power,  298. 

Fifth  race  quality,  160. 

Fifth  round,  failures  of,  267, 
268. 

Fire,  142;  the  sacred,  143. 

Fire-mist,  children  of  the,  7. 

Flame,  Lords  of  the,  7,  24. 

Fleece,  the  Golden,  symbol  of 
mind  body,  83. 

Foci  in  the  Logos,  141. 

Focus  of  consciousness,  285. 

Force,  effect  of  good,  170. 

Force  Centres,  correspondence 
of,  to  astral  centres,  292;  cor- 
respondence of,  to  colour  and 
music,  287;  effect  of  force  in, 
287  et  seq.;  not  moral  qual- 
ities, 291;  position  of,  287; 
resemblance  to  flowers  of, 
289. 

Forces  of  the  Logos,  287,  298. 

Forebodings  of  evil,  185. 

Formation  of  character,  57. 

Founding  of  the  sixth  root 
race,  149. 

Four,  Gospels,  the,  119;  noble 
Truths,  100. 

Fourth  dimension,  141. 

Free  will,  use  by  man  of,  267. 

Freedom  of  will,  48. 

Friendship,  special,  112. 
Fussing  over  trifles,  186. 

Future  lives,  continuity  of  pur- 
pose in,  59. 


G 


Gautama,  the  Lord,  8,  9,  97; 
affirms  the  ego,  105;  inner 
bodies  of,  103;  numerous 
arhats  of,  102;  the  aura  of, 
102;  the  preaching  of,  102; 
the  teaching  of,  100,  129. 

Geometry,  85. 

Gnosis,  the,  117. 

Gnostic  doctors  or  teachers, 
117;  quoted,  46. 

God,  93,  94;  immanence  of,  93; 
personal,  93;  three  persons 
in  one,  224. 

Gods  in  Hinduism,  129. 

Golden,  fleece,  the,  83;  Gate, 
city  of  the,  139. 

Good,  all  things  working  for, 
48;  always  used,  20;  more 
fertile  than  evil,  170. 

Gospel,  quoted,  270. 

Gospels,  the  four,  119. 

Gossip,  evil  effect  of,  167,  185. 

Government,  duty  of  the,  189. 

Gravitation  on  the  astral  plane, 
231,  232. 

Great  Angels,  221. 

Great  Bird,  symbolism  of,  139. 

Great  Ones,  221;  all  round  de- 
velopment of,  15;  as  chan- 
nels of  light  and  life,  221;  in 
nirvana,  221. 

Great  Soul,  merging  into,  219. 

Great  White  Brotherhood,  3,  6, 
15,  35,  54,  61,  89,  128,  153, 
283. 

Greater  Mysteries,  76. 

Greece,  mysteries  of,  75,  76. 

Greek,  cross,  80,  137. 

Group  meetings,  215;  souls, 
Masters'  influence  upon,  23. 


II 


Hall,  of  ignorance,  66;  of 
learning,  68;  of  wisdom,  68. 

Happiness,  a  duty,  181;  men- 
tal, 181;  perpetual,  173,  174. 

Hathayogapradipika,  301. 

Hatha  yogi,  181. 

Hearers,  86. 


332 


INDEX 


Heart,  symbolism  of,  139. 

Heaven-life,  position  in,  230; 
renouncing,  60. 

Hell,  ideas  of,  superstitions, 
202. 

Help,  to  living  and  dead,  214; 
to  the  sick,  214. 

Helpers,  invisible,  25,  236; 
mistaken  for  saints,  120. 

Helpfulness,  the  keynote  of, 
158. 

Helping  the  world,  71,  158. 

Hermes,  8;  Lord  Buddha  as,  97. 

Hermit,  life  of  the,  31. 

Hierarchy,  Head  of  the,  7,  35, 
138;  of  evil,  no,  127;  plans 
of,  69;  in  the,  7;  the  Great, 
195;  the  occult,  6,  14,  97. 

Higher,  criticism,  the,  117;  life 
for  the  man  of  the  world,  99; 
planes,  95,  218;  self,  activity 
of,  173,  241;  self,  and  lower, 
241. 

Hinayana  and  Mahayana,  108. 

Hinduism,  129;  effect  of  Budd- 
hism on,  101;  Lord  Buddha 
as  reformer  of,  98;  rigidity 
of,  98;  rites  and  ceremonies 
of,  130. 

Holy  places,  22. 

Host,  consecration  of  the,  123. 

Householder,  every,  a  priest, 
130. 

Humanity,  the  Logos  as  apo- 
theosis of,  95;  the  great  or- 
phan, 204. 

Humour,  necessity  of,  18. 

Hunger,  physical  craving  of,  on 
astral  plane,  257. 

Hymn,  Christian,  quoted,  71. 


Iamblichus,  75. 
Idyll  of  the  White  Lotus,  14. 
Ignorance  breeds  distrust,  164. 
Illumination,  from  higher  self, 

212;  three  kinds  of,  212. 
Illusion  of  astral  world,  67. 
"Image,  The  Living,"  29. 
Images,  magnetized,  130. 
Immanence  of  God,  93. 


Immortality,    physical,    not    a 

possibility,  319. 
Impermanence   of  personality, 

107. 
Impossibility  of  failure,  59. 
Impure  thought,  effect  of,  317. 
Incarnation    a   failure,   in   one 

type  of  insanity,  312. 
Incarnations,     seven     hundred 

and  seventy-seven,  57. 
Incubus  of  war,  151. 
Individualization    of    animals, 

70. 
Individuality,    55;    a    delusion, 

220;    and    the    monad,    49; 

building  of,  49;  no  loss  of,  in 

nirvana,  219;  of  monad,  222. 
Inflammation,  astral,  184. 
Influences,  cosmic,  140;  plane- 
tary, 209. 
Initiates,    19;    inequality,    73; 

recognition    by    each    other, 

72. 
Initiation,  35;   secrets  of,  im- 
possible   to   reveal,   72;    the 

first,  54. 
Initiations,  key  to  the  true,  89; 

steps  on  the  Path,  34. 
Insane,  the,   out   of  the  body, 

311. 
Insanity,    break    between    ego 

and    his    vehicles    in,    309; 

forms  of,  311;  one  cause  of, 

306. 
Inspiration,  moments  of,  174. 
Interior  of  the  earth,  231. 
Introspection,     during     astral 

life,  318;  morbid,  169,  172. 
Intrusion  upon  Masters,  124. 
Invisible  helpers,  25,  236;  mis- 
taken for  saints,  126. 
Invisible  Helpers,  88,  236. 
Invocation  to  Agni,  132. 
Irritability,  cure  of,  58. 
Italy,  old  religions  in,  101. 


Jason,  golden  fleece  of,  83. 

Jesus,  10,  119;  not  illegitimate, 
119;  later  Apollonius  of  Ty- 
ana,  13;  later  Ramanuja- 
charya,  13. 


INDEX 


333 


Joy  of  discipleship,  63. 
Jubilee,  the  Diamond,  152. 
Jungle,  purposes  of  retirement 

to,  31. 
Justice,  eternal,  99. 

K 

Kama,  to  be  killed  out,  189. 

Karma,  balancing,  61,  71; 
effects  of,  seen  on  astral, 
265;  of  sending  evil  thoughts, 
167;  preparing,  for  future 
life,  205;  the  law  of,  202. 

Karmic,  deities,  221;  links  with 
Masters,  38. 

K.  H.,  the  Master,  previous  in- 
carnations of,  13,  37;  quoted, 
36. 

Killing  out  desire,  189. 

King,  The,  7. 

Know  thyself,  169. 

Knowledge  of  the  Atlanteans, 
139;  underlies  belief,  122. 

Kundalini,  84,  298. 


Laboratory  of  Third  Logos, 
232. 

Ladder  of  life,  endless,  53. 

Lao-Tse.  118. 

Latin  cross,  the,  138. 

Lemuria,  animals  in,  198. 

Lemurians,  134. 

Lesser  mysteries,  76. 

Liberation,  72;  roads  to,  109; 
selfish,  61. 

Life,  A  Day  of,  204;  a  wasted, 
275;  destruction  of,  199;  lad- 
der of  53 ;  thirst  for,  272. 

Light  of  Asia,  The,  104. 

Light  on  The  Path,  14,  206, 
253. 

Link  with  Master,  45. 

"Living  Image,  The,"  29. 

Lodge,  Great  White,  43. 

Logoi,  Planetary,  centres  in 
Logos,  140. 

Logos,  The,  93,  129,  137,  138, 
140,171;  as  Avalokiteshwara, 
109;  aspects  of,  94,  138; 
emanation  of  the,  46;  forces 


of  the,  287;  form  of,  95; 
His  reason  for  creating,  46; 
laboratory  of  Third,  231;  of 
our  solar  system,  94;  our 
union  with,  96;  plan  of,  47; 
reached  along  line  of  fire, 
140;  response  of  the,  6;  sac- 
rifice of  the,  64;  scheme  of 
the,  53;  sending  forth  mo- 
nads, 49;  Third,  and  new  ele- 
ments, 231;  three  aspects  of, 
223,  224;  three  outpourings 
of,  96;  tormenting  the,  177; 
will  of  the,  266. 

Loneliness,  illusory,  210. 

Lords  of  the  Flame,  help  given 
by,  7,  24. 

Loss,  by  the  ego,  277;  serious, 
difficulty  of,  274. 

Lost,  personalties,  279,  283; 
personalities,  three  classes 
of,  I.  267,  II.  271,  III.  279, 
souls,  265;  soul,  term  a  mis- 
nomer, 266. 

Lotus,  symbolism  of,  140,  141; 
throne,  94. 

Love,  casting  out  self  by,  191; 
falling  in,  192;  selfish  and 
unselfish,  66;  the  higher,  226. 

Lower,  force  centres,  300;  self, 
174,  241. 

Lunar  form,  slaying  the,  190. 


M 


Madura,  130. 

Magic,  in  Christian  Church, 
123. 

Magicians,  black,  127,  280,  282. 

Magnification,  power  of,  296. 

Mahayana  and  Hinayana,  108. 

Maitreya,  The  Lord,  9,  19,  39, 
151. 

Maltese  cross,  137. 

Mammalia,  carnivorous,  198. 

Man,  a  divine  emanation,  46; 
an  image  of  God,  224;  devel- 
oped unequally,  260;  evolved 
and  unevolved,  258;  helping 
an  evil,  226;  in  the  world, 
higher  life  for,  99;  triple 
spirit  in,  223. 


334 


INDEX 


Man  and  His  Bodies,  322. 

Man,  Visible  and  Invisible,  182, 
254. 

Manas,  drawn  up  into  buddhi, 
224;  on  nirvanic  plane,  225. 

Manifestation,  reason  for,  46. 

Manifestations  of  deity,  129. 

Manu,  the,  10 ;  of  a  root  race,  7 ; 
of  the  sixth  root  race,  59; 
regulations  of  the,  130. 

Manus,  future,  203. 

Mara,  personification  of  past 
karma,  128. 

Master,  a,  quoted,  204;  action 
by,  on  ego,  248;  assuming 
the  form  of  a,  by  black  ma- 
gician, 42;  attracting  the 
attention  of  a,  35,  37,  39; 
aware  of  pupil's  thoughts, 
30,  32;  channel  of  the  Logos, 
29;  confidence  in  the,  210; 
effect  produced  by  the,  on 
pupil's  vehicles,  30;  enfold- 
ing pupil  in  high  aura,  220; 
enthroning  the,  193;  force  at 
the  command  of,  26;  influ- 
ence of,  on  ego,  246;  influ- 
ence of,  on  personality,  248; 
karmic  debt  paid  by  a,  39; 
meditation  on  the,  45; 
method  used  by  a,  in  speak- 
ing through  a  pupil,  32;  rec- 
ognizing a,  16;  relation  of,  to 
accepted  pupil,  26;  "son"  of 
the,  34;  use  by  a,  of  pupil's 
body,  33;  use  of  force  by  a, 
25. 

Masters,  The,  3,  11,  18,  25;  ac- 
tivities of  some,  14;  age  of, 
17;  and  foreign  languages, 
16;  appearance  of  the,  16; 
association  with,  27,  29;  bod- 
ies. They  wear,  6;  character- 
istics of,  11;  coming  into 
touch  with,  in  illumination, 
212;  defined,  3;  effect  of  the 
presence  of,  12;  failures  of 
moon  chain,  69;  full  of  joy, 
177;  ill-wishers  of  the,  39; 
imitating  the,  166;  imperfect 
instruments  of,  25 ;  interrupt- 
ing the,  25;  in  evolutionary 


ladder,  53;  intrusion  upon, 
124;  karmic  ties  of  the,  with 
individuals,  38,  39;  knowl- 
edge possessed  by  the,  16; 
link  with,  45;  living  in  ac- 
cordance with  hygienic  laws, 
320;  living  men,  12;  nation- 
ality of,  6;  on  many  Rays, 
43;  none  overlooked  by,  37, 
304;  number  of,  18;  outlook 
of,  on  the  world,  37;  personal 
requests  to,  24;  personation 
of,  32;  plans  of  the,  21;  phys- 
ical bodies  of  the,  19;  pour- 
ing out  of  force  by,  23;  re- 
pudiating the,  155;  silence  of, 
19;  the  two,  4, 10;  Their  won- 
derful knowledge,  16;  why 
They  will  not  train  you,  27, 
30;  work  of  the,  14,  21;  work 
of  the,  with  egos,  23. 

Materialists  often  religious 
people,  50. 

Mathematics,  in  the  mysteries, 
85. 

Mathematikoi,  87. 

Matter,  density  of,  in  earth's 
centre,  231;  descent  into,  47; 
not  evil,  127,  176;  physical, 
attracting  astral,  233. 

Matthaeus  the  monk,  119. 

Meat,  liked  by  low  entities, 
314;  eating,  180,320. 

Meditation,  206,  248;  attitude 
of  ego  towards  personality 
in,  213;  drawing  attention  of 
ego  in,  248;  in  group,  214; 
objects  of,  208;  on  the  Mas- 
ter, 45;  on  the  Supreme,  209; 
opens  channel  between  ego 
and  personality,  250;  preju- 
dices during,  213;  reasons 
for  dulness  in,  208;  regular- 
ity in,  45;  special  room  for, 
215;  spiritual  dryness  in, 
207;  stages  in,  211. 

Memory  of  past  lives,  105. 

Men,  living  in  their  minds,  271; 
living  in  their  passions,  271; 
not  feeling  alike  toward  all, 
226;  of  two  classes,  204. 


INDEX 


335 


Mental,  body,  warts  on,  163; 
consciousness,  285;  crusta- 
ceans, 62;  fatigue  non-exist- 
ent, 139;  plane,  extent  of, 
229;  plane,  forces  of,  243. 

Messiah,  advent  of,  151. 

Middle  way,  the,  99. 

Mind,  austerity  of  the,  181; 
control  of,  211;  slayer  of  the 
real,  163,  165,  211;  your  own 
business,  159,  166,  167. 

Minister  of  religions,  work 
of,  7. 

Minotaur,  myth  of,  79. 

Monad,  and  ego,  222;  and  indi- 
viduality, 49;  as  triple  spirit, 
223;  centre  in  Logos,  168; 
descent  of,  into  planes,  223; 
from  the  Logos,  49;  home  of, 
223;  individuality  of,  223; 
life  of,  223;  voice  of,  223. 

Moods,  caused  by  illusion,  177; 
several  causes  for,  173. 

Moon-chain,  failures  of,  69. 

Morbid  introspection,  168,  169. 

Morphine  habit,  179. 

Museum,  the  occult,  of  the 
Brotherhood,  138. 

Music,  relation  of,  to  platonic 
solids,  87. 

Mystae,  79. 

Mysteries,  accusations  against 
the,  75;  all  nations  have  had, 
74;  an  inner  school  in,  83; 
books  on,  75;  clairvoyantly 
examined,  76;  in  Christian 
Church,  74;  lesser  and 
greater,  77;  life  of  disciples 
in,  88;  mathematics  in,  87; 
of  ancient  Greece,  73;  of 
Eleusis,  76;  symbols  used  in, 
86  et  seq.;  teaching  of  the, 
79,  80;  the  ancient,  75;  the 
real  secret,  78;  the  third  de- 
gree of  the,  77. 

Myth,  of  Ariadne,  79;  of  Nar- 
cissus, 78;  of  Proserpina,  78; 
of  Sisyphus,  82;  of  Tantalus, 
81;  of  the  Minotaur,  79;  of 
Theseus,  79;  of  Tityus,  82. 


N 


Nagarjuna,  13. 

Narcissus,  myth  of,  79. 

Narcotics,  evil  of,  308. 

Nations,  union  of,  150. 

Nature,  opposition  to,  279. 

Nature-Spirits,  200;  sometimes 
obsess,  310. 

Nervous  diseases,  183. 

New  truth,  how  the  world 
treats,  66. 

Nidanas,  the  twelve,  100. 

Nirmanakayas,  4,  5. 

Nirvana,  219;  definitions  of, 
107;  description  of,  221;  not 
annihilation,  107;  recogni- 
tion in,  222. 

Nirvanic  plane,  extent  of,  230. 

Noble  eight-fold  path,  101. 

Non-interference,  167. 

Northern  Buddhism,   104,   108. 


O 


Objects  of  meditation,  208. 

Obsession,  127,  307;  and  som- 
nambulism, 314;  by  astral 
beings,  305;  during  fit  of  an- 
ger, 314;  during  sleep,  314; 
during  somnambulism,  318; 
forms  of,  310;  how  to  resist, 
310,  312;  ousting  of  the  ego 
in,  309;  permitted  by  fear, 
313. 

Occult  Chemistry,  86. 

Occult  Hierarchy,  6,  14,  97;  de- 
partments of,  7,  Head  of,  7. 

Occult,  musemum,  the,  138. 

Occultism,  how  it  changes  life, 
158. 

Occultist,  has  no  personal  feel- 
ings, 187. 

Offence,  taking,  186. 

Olcott,  Colonel,  and  his  Mas- 
ter, 39. 

Om,  sacred  word  of  Aryan 
race,  139. 

One-Pointedness,  157. 

Opportunities,  15,  89;  for  good 
never  refused,  166;  lost,  154; 
neglecting  minor,  156. 


336 


INDEX 


Opportunity,  result  of  failure 

to  use,  277. 
Optimism,  173. 
Orphan,  the  great,  204. 
Orpheus,  8;    Lord   Buddha  as, 

97. 
Other  Side  of  Death,  The,  214. 
Ourselves,  as  channels  of  light 

and  life,  221. 
Outpourings,  the  three,  96. 


Palsy,  astral,  183. 

Pantheism,  94. 

Paritta  or  Pirit,  111. 

Passions,  control  of,  265. 

Past  lives,  memory  of,  105. 

Path,  becoming  the,  68;  diffi- 
culties of  the,  65;  of  holiness, 
4,  43;  of  holiness,  incarna- 
tions during,  61,  62;  of  prog- 
ress, 46;  of  woe,  62,  65; 
stages  of  the,  19;  the,  and 
the  law,  68. 

Path  of  Discipleship,  The,  88. 

Patriotism,  66. 

Peace,  universal,  151. 

Perfect  man  a  decad,  69. 

Perfection,  attainment  of,  69; 
of  self,  how  to  begin,  57; 
relativity  of,  69. 

Perfections,  six  great,  101. 

Persecution  of  disciples,  65. 

Personal,  feelings,  occultist 
has  no,  187,  188;  God,  93; 
matters  unimportant,  185. 

Personality,  and  ego,  213,  241; 
and  individuality,  105;  break- 
ing away  from  ego,  279;  ex- 
periences of,  and  ego,  245; 
impermanence  of,  106;  influ- 
ence upon,  by  Master,  246; 
in  new  incarnation,  278;  lost, 
283;  part  of  ego,  279;  ram- 
pant, 155;  sinking  the,  28; 
the  amputated,  281;  why 
characteristic  of,  intensified, 
248. 

Personalties,  getting  rid  of  our, 
155. 


Personation,  in  spiritualism, 
135;  of  the  Masters,  42. 

Pharaoh,  head-dress  of,  297. 

Physical,  body,  astral  counter- 
part of,  254,  255;  care  of, 
319;  immortality,  319. 

Physikoi,  88. 

Pilgrims,  24. 

Pilgrimages,  occult  reasons 
for,  132. 

Pineal  gland,  294. 

Pituary  body,  293;  body,  link 
with  astral,  303. 

Plan  of  the  Logos,  48. 

Plane,  astral,  226;  buddhic,  227. 

Planes,  not  shelves,  227;  the 
higher,  218. 

Planetary,  influences  on  medi- 
tation, 209;  Logoi,  140;  spir- 
its, 209. 

Planets,  movements  of,  140; 
not  isolated,  141. 

Platonic  solids,  in  the  mys- 
teries, 85,  86. 

Poltergeist  phenomena,  265. 

"Poor  Men,"  the,  116. 

Pope,  the,  121. 

Power  of  magnification,  296. 

Prana  or  vitality,  298. 

Prayer,  124;  always  reaches 
Deity,  126;  how  it  operates, 
126;  to  saints,  125. 

Preceptors,  self-appointed,  42. 

Prejudice,  136,  152,  163,  213; 
racial,  163;  colour,  163;  reli- 
gious, 163,  165;  what  it  is, 
164. 

Prejudices,  getting  rid  of,  163; 
of  personality,  247. 

Pressure,  etheric,  231. 

Probation,  average  time  of,  28. 

Progress,  certain,  203;  effect  of 
rapid  on  organism,  68;  path 
of,  46;  the  law  of,  54. 

Proselytism,  futility  of,  10. 

Psychic,  development,  dangers 
of  indiscriminate,  44;  pow- 
ers, according  to  Buddhism, 
112;  powers,  to  come  as  re- 
sult of  character  develop- 
ment, 308. 


INDEX 


337 


Pupil,  and  accepted,  29,  32;  as 
channel,  28;  conditions  for 
acceptance  of,  26,  27;  first 
task  of,  28;  how  to  qualify  to 
become  a,  37;  influence  of 
Master  upon,  32,  45;  joy  of 
the,  63;  life  of  the,  full  of 
joy,  53;  Master  speaking 
through,  33;  not  a  medium, 
33;  probationary  period  of, 
29;  psychic  development  of, 
44;  relation  of,  to  Great 
Brotherhood,  35;  what  it 
means  to  be  a,  26,  27;  when 
acceptable,  26,  29;  work  of 
the,  at  night,  43;  work  to 
be  performed  by,  25. 

Purification,  of  astral  and 
physical,  308;  of  desire,  189. 

Purpose,  continuity  of,  in  fu- 
ture lives,  58. 

Pythagoras,  114;  school  of,  86, 
87;  the  Master  K.  H.,  13. 

Q 

Queen  Victoria,  152. 


R 


Ramanujacharya,  13. 

Readiness  to  believe  evil,  162. 

Reality,  the  only,  222. 

Realization,  of  self,  57;  of 
truth,  52. 

Rebirth  and  adeptship,  69. 

Records  of  the  past,  53. 

Regularity  in  meditation,  45. 

Reincarnation,  and  spiritual- 
ists, 135;  taught  in  the  mys- 
teries, 78. 

Relation,  between  colour  and 
sound,  87;  between  harmonic 
chord  and  platonic  solid,  87. 

Relics,  132. 

Religion,  Greek,  80. 

Religions,  critics  are  friends  of, 
117;  minister  of,  7. 

Renunciation,  172;  of  heaven- 
world,  59;  path  of,  61. 

Repentance,  a  mistake,  175;  ef- 
fect of,  on  ego,  274. 


Reservoir,  the,  4,  5. 
Retrogression,  276. 
Revelations,  astral,  40. 
Root  race,  Buddha  of,  152;  the 

sixth,  beginning  of,  10;   the 

sixth,  spiritual  leader  of,  10; 

the  sixth,  temporal  leader  of, 

10. 
Rosicrucians,  88. 
Round,  the  seventh,  69,  70. 
Ruysbroek,  quoted,  65. 


Sacrifice  of  the  Logos,  64. 

Sacrifices,  127. 

"Safe"  or  "saved,"  54,  270. 

Saints,  invisible  helpers  mis- 
taken for,  126. 

Salvation,  98. 

Samannaphalasutta,  105. 

Sarthon,  12. 

Satyrs,  299. 

Saving  our  souls,  203. 

Schoolmaster,  wickedness  of 
average,  265. 

Secret  Doctrine,  The,  20,  66,  84, 
138,  269,  274. 

Secrets,  betrayal  of,  72;  of  in- 
itiation, 72. 

Seeing,  and  hearing,  astral, 
254;  truly,  how  to  begin,  163. 

Self,  dethronement  of,  192;  en- 
larging the,  56;  escape  from, 
191;  higher  and  lower,  174, 
241;  in  everything,  209; 
never  any  pain  to  the,  62; 
realization  of,  57. 

Self-centredness,  191,  195,  276; 
in  theosophical  work,  194. 

Self-control,  188. 

Self-examination,  168,  171. 

Self-gratulation,  194. 

Self-knowledge,  necessity  of, 
168. 

Self-perfection,  how  to  begin, 
57. 

Selfishness,  a  scaffolding,  55; 
an  anachronism,  55;  in  love, 
66;  in  work,  193;  necessary 
at  one  stage,  55;  shells  of, 
238;  utilised,  153. 


338 


INDEX 


Separateness,  sense  of,  220; 
striving  for,  279. 

Serpent-Fire,  84,  292,  295,  298; 
action  of,  in  etheric  centres, 
295;  action  of,  varies  with 
types  of  people,  303;  advice 
about  arousing,  304;  author's 
experience  with,  303;  con- 
quest of,  repeated  in  each  in- 
carnation, 303;  dangers  of 
awakening,  300,  301;  experi- 
menting with,  301;  its  con- 
nection with  occult  develop- 
ment, 302;  no  limit  of  age 
for,  304;  on  all  planes,  298; 
rousing  of,  295;  seven  layers 
of,  298;  unpleasant  possibili- 
ties of  premature  unfoldment 
of,  300;  works  spontaneously, 
302,  303. 

Severed  limb,  astral  counter- 
part of,  255. 

Shade,  after  death,  261,  278. 

Shamballa,  138. 

Shankaracharya,  inner  bodies 
of,  103;  not  the  Buddha,  8, 
103. 

Shells  of  selfishness,  238. 

Shiva,  the  destroyer,  128. 

Shutting  the  door,  268. 

Silence,  duty  of,  167. 

Sin,  120. 

Single-mindedness,   157. 

Sinners,  miserable,  175. 

Sisyphus,  myth  of,  82. 

Sixth  root  race,  founding,  152. 

Slander,  285. 

Sleep,  best  time  for,  316;  cause 
of,  315;  ego  in,  314;  ele- 
mentals  attracted  during, 
317;  obsession  during,  314; 
recollection  during,  305;  re- 
cuperative power  during, 
316;  surroundings  in,  234. 

Sleeping  and  waking,  state  be- 
tween, 242. 

Small  worries,  181. 

Sliding  back,  not  possible,  170, 
171. 

Society,  Theosophical,  4,  22; 
not  political,  324;  purpose 
of,   11. 


Solar,  Logos,  system  physical 
body  of,  93;  system,  viewed 
from  fourth  dimension,  141. 

Somnambulism,  causes  of,  318; 
sometimes  caused  by  obses- 
sion, 314. 

Son  of  the  Master,  34. 

Sotapatti  or  Srotapanna,  54. 

Soul  of  a  People,  The,  104. 

Soul,  Great,  merging  into,  219; 
selling  the,  127. 

Souls,  difference  between,  266; 
dropping  out  in  fifth  round, 
267;  losing,  266;  lost,  263; 
possible  fates  of,  284;  saving 
our,  203;  three  classes  of 
lost,  I.  267,  II.  271,  III.  279. 

Southern  Buddhism,  104,  110; 
ceremonies  of,  110;  psychic 
powers  in,  111;  teaching  of, 
105. 

Space,  alone  in,  280. 

Specialization,  danger  of,  204. 

Spheres,  the,  227. 

Spirillae,  seven,  61. 

Spirit,  seven-fold,  225;  sheath 
for  the,  in  nirvana,  222; 
sheath  of,  at  planetary  lev- 
els, 222;  triple,  224,  225. 

Spirits,  Planetary,  individual- 
ity of,  220 

Spiritual,  dryness,  207. 

Spiritualism,  agreement  with 
theosophy,  134;  personations 
in,  135;  the  higher,  136. 

Spiritualists  and  reincarnation, 
135. 

Spleen,  287. 

Srotapanna,  54. 

Stages,  three,  of  relation  of 
Master  to  pupil,  35. 

Stanzas  of  Dzyan,  The,  120. 

Stream,  entering,  upon  the,  59. 

Sub-race,  Teutonic,  150. 

Successes,  proportion  of,  69. 

Suffering,  relieving,  a  cruelty 
to  sufferer,  227. 

Summer-land,  extent  of,  231. 

Sun,  as  heart  of  Solar  Logos, 
93;  every  fixed  star  a,  97. 

Supererogation,  6. 

Superstition,  about  hell,  202. 


INDEX 


339 


Supreme,  no  change  in,  209. 
Surroundings,  always   helpful, 

171;  in  sleep,  234. 
Suspicion,  beginnings  of,  162; 

distorting  effect  of,  162. 
Svastika,  138 
Symbol,  of  the  cross,  137,  289; 

of  the  great  bird,  139;  of  the 

heart,  139;  of  the  lotus,  140. 
Symbology,  137. 
Symbols,    in    book    of    Dzyan, 

137;  in  the  mysteries,  84  et 

seq. 
Sympathy,    199;    with    nature, 

lost  in  modern  science,  199. 


T 


Tantalus,  myth  of,  81. 

Tau,  sacred  word  of  the  Atlan- 
tean  race,  139. 

Tea,  effect  of,  on  atomic  web, 
306. 

Teachers,  association  with,  31; 
astral,  40. 

Teaching,  how  to  verify,  52,  53; 
Lord  Buddha's,  98,  100,  129, 
190;  of  children,  200;  priv- 
ilege of,  156;  the  higher,  un- 
reality of,  50. 

Test  of  earth,  236. 

Teutons,  unification  of,  150, 
151. 

Thalaba,  quoted,  153. 

Theosophic  truth,  duty  of 
spreading,  157. 

Theosophical  conferences,  ef- 
fects of,  164. 

Theosophical  Society,  4,  22;  as 
gateway  to  the  Masters,  87; 
one  object  in  founding,  11; 
not  political,  324. 

Theosophy,  agreement  with 
spiritualism,  134;  and  true 
primitive  Christianity,  114; 
checking  truths  of,  by  direct 
observation,  53;  explains 
Christianity,  118;  giving  cer- 
tainty of  value  of  higher 
things,  50;  how  verified  by 
earlier  students,  51;  what  it 
does  for  us,  50. 


Theseus,  myth  of,  79. 

Third  Logos,  laboratory  of, 
232. 

Thirst  for  life,  272. 

Thought,  control,  214;  evil,  im- 
possible to  ego,  252;  shells 
of,  62;  last,  before  falling 
asleep,  317. 

Thought-form,  as  a  barrier, 
165;  entered  into  by  low  be- 
ings, 265;  resistance  to,  238. 

Three  outpourings  of  Logos, 
96. 

Thyrsus,  the,  84. 

Tityus,  myth  of,  82. 

Tobacco,  effect  of,  on  astral 
after  death,  321;  effect  of,  on 
atomic  web,  306;  evil  effect 
of,  321;  smoking,  179. 

Tolerance  of  race  peculiarities, 
152. 

Toltecs,  134. 

Torture  foolish,  177. 

Toys  of  Bacchus,  85. 

Tramps,  astral,  313. 

Travel,  advantages  of,  164. 

Trinity,  93. 

Triple  spirit,  222. 

Trishna,  272. 

Truth,  how  the  world  treats 
new,  66;  realization  of,  52. 

Truths,  four  noble,  100. 

Twelve  apostles,  the,  119. 


U 


Ultimate  good  certain,  48. 
Unconsciousness,    after   death, 

305. 
Union  of  nations,  150. 
Unity,  trinity  in,  224. 
Universal  peace,  151. 
Unselfish,  how  to  make  oneself, 

56. 

V 

Vampirism,  320;   by  lost  per- 
sonality, 281. 
Vegetables,  coarse,  320. 
Vegetarianism,  320. 
Vehicles  of  the  ego,  240. 
Venus,  Lords  from,  7,  203. 


340 


INDEX 


Verification  of  teaching,  52,  53. 
Vibrations,     evil,     in     coarser 

matter,   275;   of  one  on  the 

Path,  31. 
Victoria,  death  of  Queen,  152. 
Vitality,   exists   on  all   planes, 

225;  force  of  the  Logos,  298. 
Voice  of  the  silence,  223. 
Voice  of  the  Silence,  The,  42, 

66,   101,   163,   211,   292,   298, 

302. 
Vyasa,  Lord  Buddha  as,  97. 

W 

Waking  and  sleeping,  state  be- 
tween, 242. 

War,  incubus  of,  151. 

Way,  the  middle,  99. 

Ways,  the  seven,  4. 

Web,  atomic,  305. 

Wickedness  of  gossip,  167. 

Will,  developing,  180,  211;  how 
to  train,  180;  power,  easy 
and  difficult  exercise  of,  211. 


Woe,  candidate  for,  4;  path  of, 

61,  65. 
Words  do  not  injure,  186. 
Work,  how  to  do,  193;  of  the 

Master,   155;    selfishness   in, 

193;  right  to  do  a,  203. 
Worker,    dangers    in    way    of 

theosophical,  193,  194. 
World,  helping  of  the,  71,  157. 
World's  Mother,  292,  298. 
Worries,  small,  181. 
Worry,   215;   absence   of,    172; 

conquering,     185;     learning 

not  to,  172;  thought  form  of, 

215. 

Y 

Yoga,  the,  of  an  ego,  213. 
Young  souls,  269. 


Zoroaster,    142;    Lord    Buddha 
as,  97;  the  first,  8. 


THE  INNER  LIFE 

VOLUME  II 


THEOSOPHICAL  TALKS    AT    ADTAR 


(second  series) 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


BY 


C.  W.  LEADBEATER 
Volume  II 


SECOND  EDITION 


THE   THEOSOPHICAL  PRESS 

826  OAKDALE  AVENUE, 

CHICAGO,  ILL. 

1922 


CONTENTS 


The  After-death  Life 

Page 

The  Theosophist  After  Death 3 

The  Relation  of  the  Dead  to  Earth    ....  5 

Conditions  after  Death 16 

Animal  Obsession 20 

Individualised  Animals 30 

Localisation  of  States 31 

Heaven-Life  Conditions 37 

Karma  in  the  Heaven-Life 43 


J^ectmfr  Rectum 

Astral  Work 

Invisible  Helpers 57 

Remembering  Astral  Experience 71 

The  Higher  Dimensions 78 


®I{trh 


tectum 

The  Mental  Body  and  the  Power  of  Thought 

The  Mental  Body 87 

A  Neglected  Power 97 

Intuition  and  Impulse 105 

Thought  Centres 107 

Thought  and  Elemental  Essence 112 


^mtrtlj  Return 

Psychic  Faculties 

Psychic  Powers 117 

Clairvoyance 126 

The  Mystic  Chord 138 

How  Past  Lives  are  Seen 145 

Foreseeing  the  Future 158 


Devas  and  Nature-Spirits 

The  Aura  of  the  Deva 165 

The  Spirit  of  a  Tree 171 


The  Worlds  and  the  Races  of  Men 

The  Building  of  the  System 175 

The  Planetary  Chains .  184 

Successive  Life-Waves 190 

The  Monads  From  the  Moon 211 

The  Earth  Chain 224 

Modes  of  Individualisation 249 

The  Seven  Types 262 

Stray  Notes  on  Races 264 

The   Irish   Race 264 

The  Spanish  Race 269 

The  Jewish  Race 270 

The  Atlanteans 273 

Mars  and  its  Inhabitants 275 


Reincarnation 

Three  Laws  of  Human  Life 289 

The  Return  to  Birth 290 

Personal  Characteristics 305 

Bringing  Over  Past  Knowledge 306 

The  Intervals  Between  Lives 308 


Karma 

The  Law  of  Equilibrium 321 

The  Method  of  Karma 332 

The  Karma  of  Death 337 

Karma  as  an  Educator 342 

Varieties  of  Karma 344 

Animal  Karma 349 


The  Theosophical  Society  and  its  Founders 

What  is  the  Theosophical  Society?    ....  357 

Theosophy  and  World  Leaders    , 366 

Reminiscences 373 

Faithful  Unto  Death 384 

A  Course  of  Study  in  Theosophy 390 

Index 397 


FOREWORD  TO  AMERICAN  EDITION 


The  long-promised  second  series  of  Adyar  Talks  has 
at  length  been  published  after  many  unavoidable  de- 
lays. After  careful  consideration  it  was  thought  best 
to  abandon  the  use  of  the  title  The  Hidden  Life  and  to 
issue  the  volume  as  The  Inner  Life,  Volume  II.  Some 
of  these  informal  talks  to  the  classes  at  Adyar  have 
already  appeared  in  The  Theosophist,  but  many  of  the 
chapters  contain  facts  which  have  not  been  published 
before,  such  as  "Mars  and  Its  Inhabitants." 

The  manuscript  of  The  Hidden  Side  of  Things,  which 
promises  to  be  a  book  of  some  seven  hundred  pages,  is 
ready  for  the  printer,  and  we  are  only  waiting  an  op- 
portune time  to  publish  it. 

C.  W.  LEADBEATER. 

Adyab,  June  29, 1911. 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 


While  the  President  was  absent  from  Adyar  on  a 
tour  through  England  and  America  last  year,  it  fell 
to  my  lot  to  take  charge  of  the  daily  meetings  of  the 
students  here.  In  the  course  of  that  time  I  delivered 
many  informal  little  addresses  and  answered  hundreds 
of  questions.  All  that  I  said  was  taken  down  in  short- 
hand, and  this  book  is  the  result  of  those  notes.  In  a 
number  of  cases  it  happened  that  what  was  said  on  the 
roof  at  the  meetings  was  afterwards  expanded  into  a 
little  article  for  The  Theosophist  or  The  Adyar  Bulle- 
tin; in  all  such  cases  I  reprint  the  article  instead  of 
the  stenographic  report,  as  it  has  had  the  advantage  of 
certain  corrections  and  additions.  Necessarily  a  book 
of  this  sort  is  fragmentary  in  its  nature;  necessarily 
also  it  contains  a  certain  amount  of  repetition ;  though 
this  latter  has  been  excised  wherever  possible.  Many 
of  the  subjects  treated  have  also  been  dealt  with  in 
my  earlier  books,  but  what  is  written  here  represents 
in  all  cases  the  result  of  the  latest  discoveries  in  con- 
nection with  those  subjects-  The  subjects  have  been 
classified  as  far  as  possible,  and  this  volume  is  the 
second  series,  containing  the  nine  remaining  sections. 

C.  W.  LEADBEATER. 

Adyar,  July,  1911. 


Jljtrst  Section 


%>  JUter-bRdlf  pfe 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


FIRST  SECTION 


The  Theosophist  After  Death 

HEN  a  member  of  the  Theosophical  So- 
ciety finds  himself  upon  the  astral  plane 
after  having  permanently  laid  aside  his 
physical  body,  it  will  be  well  for  him  to 
begin  by  taking  stock,  as  it  were — by 
seeing  what  is  his  position,  what  is  the  life  before 
him,  and  how  he  can  make  the  best  use  of  it.  He 
will  do  wisely  to  consult  on  these  matters  some 
friend  who  has  had  wider  experience  than  himself, 
and  in  practice  this  is  what  dead  members  almost 
always  do.  Remember  that  when  the  member  enters 
upon  the  astral  plane  after  death  he  is  not  making 
his  first  appearance  there.  Usually  he  has  already 
done  much  work  there  during  the  sleep  of  the  physical 
body,  and  is  therefore  on  familiar  ground.  As  a 
general  rule  his  first  instinct  is  to  make  straight 
for  our  beloved  President,  which  is  probably  quite 
the  wisest  thing  for  him  to  do,  as  there  is  no  one 
better  qualified  to  give  him  sound  advice.    So  many 


4  THE  INNER  LIFE 

possibilities  open  out  in  astral  life  that  one  cannot 
lay  down  any  general  rule,  though  a  man  cannot  go 
far  wrong  who  tries  to  make  himself  useful  to  those 
around  him.  There  are  plentiful  opportunities  for 
learning,  as  well  as  for  work,  and  the  new-comer 
will  have  to  decide  how  he  can  best  apportion  his 
time  between  them. 

The  astral  world  will  not  be  altered  for  the  con- 
venience of  members  of  the  Theosophical  Society, 
any  more  than  the  physical  world  is,  and  they,  like 
every  one  else,  will  have  to  encounter  what  happens 
to  be  there.  If  a  drunken  man  is  walking  along  a 
certain  road,  those  who  happen  to  pass  along  that 
road  will  meet  him,  whether  they  are  members  or 
not,  and  the  astral  plane  does  not,  in  this  respect, 
differ  from  the  physical.  The  members,  being  in- 
structed in  regard  to  the  rules  governing  life  on  the 
astral  plane,  ought  to  know  better  than  the  unin- 
structed  how  to  deal  with  such  unpleasant  beings  as 
happen  to  come  in  their  way,  but  they  are  just  as 
likely  as  any  one  else  to  meet  them.  They  have, 
however,  probably  met  such  beings  many  times 
while  functioning  upon  the  astral  plane  during  life, 
and  there  is  no  more  reason  to  be  afraid  of  them 
than  before;  indeed,  meeting  them  then  upon  their 
own  level,  it  will  be  far  easier  to  come  to  an  under- 
standing with  them  and  to  give  them  such  help  as 
they  are  able  to  receive. 

There  is  practically  no  difference  between  the  con- 
dition of  the  ordinary  person  and  the  psychic  after 
death,  except  that  the  psychic,  being  somewhat  more 
familiar  with  astral  matters,  would  feel  more  at 
home  in  his  new  environment.  To  be  psychic  means 
to  be  able  to  bring  through  into  the  physical  con- 
sciousness something  of  the  wider  life;  it  is  therefore 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  DEAD  TO  EARTH  5 

in  the  condition  of  the  physical  vehicle  that  there  is 
an  inequality  between  the  psychic  and  the  ordinary 
person,  but  when  the  physical  is  dropped  that  in- 
equality no  longer  exists. 


The  Relation  of  the  Dead  to  Earth 

A  dead  man  is  often  aware  of  the  feelings  of  the 
family  that  he  has  left.  If  you  try  to  think  exactly 
what  it  is  that  can  be  manifested  through  the  astral 
body,  you  may  easily  see  how  much  he  is  likely  to 
know.  He  does  not  necessarily  follow  in  detail  all 
the  events  of  the  physical  life;  he  does  not  neces- 
sarily know  what  his  friends  are  eating,  or  in  what 
occupations  they  are  engaged.  But  he  knows  whether 
they  are  glad  or  sorry,  and  he  is  at  once  aware  of 
such  feelings  as  love  or  hate,  jealousy  or  envy. 

When  a  drunkard  hovers  about  a  gin-shop  it  is 
only  by  partial  materialisation  (that  is,  by  drawing 
round  himself  a  veil  of  etheric  matter)  that  he  can 
draw  in  the  odour  of  the  alcohol.  He  does  not  smell 
it  in  at  all  the  same  sense  as  we  do;  and  that  is  why 
he  is  always  anxious  to  force  others  into  the  condition 
of  drunkenness,  so  that  he  may  be  able  partially  to 
enter  their  physical  bodies  and  obsess  them,  so  that 
through  those  bodies  he  can  once  more  directly  ex- 
perience the  taste  and  the  other  sensations  which 
he  so  ardently  desires. 

In  the  astral  body  there  are  exact  counterparts  of 
the  eyes  and  the  nose  and  the  mouth,  but  we  must 
not  therefore  think  that  the  astral  man  sees  with 
those  eyes,  hears  with  those  ears,  or  cati  smell  or 


e  THE  INNER  LIFE 

taste  through  the  nose  or  mouth.  All  the  matter  of 
the  astral  body  is  constantly  in  rapid  motion  from 
one  part  of  it.  to  another,  so  that  it  is  quite  impossi- 
ble for  any  astral  particles  to  be  specialised  in  the 
same  way  as  certain  nerve-ends  are  specialised  in 
the  physical  body.  The  senses  of  the  astral  body 
act  not  through  special  organs,  but  through  every 
particle  of  the  body,  so  that  with  astral  sight  a  man 
can  see  equally  well  with  any  part  of  his  body,  and 
can  see  all  around  him  simultaneously,  instead  of 
only  in  front  of  him.  He  could  grasp  at  the  astral 
counterpart  of  the  hand  of  a  living  man,  but  as  the 
two  hands  would  pass  through  one  another  without 
any  sense  of  contact,  there  would  be  no  object  in  his 
doing  so.  It  is,  however,  perfectly  possible  for  him 
to  materialise  a  hand  which,  though  invisible,  can 
be  felt  just  as  the  ordinary  physical  hand  can  be,  as 
may  often  be  observed  at  seances. 

There  are  three  subdivisions  of  the  astral  plane 
from  which  it  may  be  possible  (though  not  desira- 
ble) for  disembodied  men  to  see  and  follow  events 
taking  place  upon  the  physical  plane.  On  the  low- 
est sub-plane  the  man  is  usually  occupied  in  other 
ways,  and  concerns  himself  little  with  what  takes 
place  in  the  physical  world,  except,  as  is  explained 
in  our  literature,  when  he  haunts  vile  resorts;  but, 
in  the  next  subdivision,  he  has  very  close  touch  with 
the  physical  plane,  and  may  quite  probably  be  con- 
scious of  a  good  many  things  in  connection  with  it, 
though  what  he  sees  is  never  the  physical  matter 
itself,  but  always  the  astral  counterpart  of  it.  In 
rapidly  diminishing  degree  this  consciousness  is  also 
possible  as  he  ascends  through  the  next  two  sub- 
planes;  but  beyond  that,  it  would  be  only  by  the 
special    effort    to    communicate    through    a    medium 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  DEAD  TO  EARTH  7 

that  contact  with  the  physical  plane  could  be  gained, 
and  from  the  highest  sub-plane  even  that  would  be 
extremely  difficult. 

The  extent  of  a  man's  power  to  see  and  follow 
physical  events  from  the  astral  plane  is  determined 
by  his  character  and  disposition,  as  well  as  by  the 
stage  of  development  to  which  he  has  attained.  Most 
of  those  whom  we  ordinarily  call  good  people,  living 
out  their  lives  to  their  natural  end,  sweep  through 
all  these  lower  stages  before  awakening  to  astral 
consciousness,  and  they  are  therefore  unlikely  to  be 
conscious  of  anything  physical  at  all.  Some  few, 
however,  even  of  these  are  drawn  back  into  touch 
with  this  world  by  great  anxiety  about  some  one  left 
behind. 

Less  developed  persons  have  in  their  composition 
more  of  the  matter  of  these  lower  sub-planes,  and 
are  therefore  much  more  likely  to  be  able  to  follow 
to  some  extent  what  goes  on  upon  earth.  Most  of 
all  is  this  the  case  if  they  are  people  whose  whole 
turn  of  thought  is  essentially  of  this  world — who 
have  in  them  little  or  nothing  of  spiritual  aspiration 
or  of  high  intellect.  This  downward  tendency  grows 
with  the  using,  and  a  man  who  is  at  first  happily 
unconscious  of  what  lies  below  him  may  be  so  un- 
fortunate as  to  have  his  attention  attracted  to  it, 
frequently  by  selfish  manifestations  of  the  grief  of 
the  survivors.  He  then  exerts  his  will  to  keep  him- 
self from  rising  out  of  touch  with  this  life  to  which 
he  no  longer  belongs;  and  in  such  a  case  his  power 
of  seeing  earthly  things  increases  for  a  time,  and 
then  he  suffers  mentally  when  he  presently  finds  such 
power  slipping  from  him.  Such  suffering  is  entirely 
due  to  the  irregularity  introduced  into  the  astral  life 
by  his  own  action,  for  it  is  absolutely  unknown  in 
the  ordinary  and  orderly  evolution  after  death. 


8  THE  INNER  LIFE 

If  it  is  complained  that  in  this  way  the  departed 
does  not  see  the  physical  world  exactly  as  it  really 
is,  we  must  answer  that  neither  the  departed  nor  we 
on  this  plane  ever  see  the  physical  world  as  it  really 
is  at  all,  for  we  (or  most  of  us)  see  only  the  solid 
and  liquid  portions  thereof,  and  are  altogether  blind 
to  the  far  vaster  gaseous  and  etheric  parts;  while  the 
departed  does  not  see  the  physical  matter  at  all,  nor 
even  the  whole  astral  counterpart  of  it,  but  only  that 
portion  of  the  latter  which  belongs  to  the  particular 
sub-plane  upon  which  he  is  at  the  time.  The  only 
man  who  gets  anything  like  a  comprehensive  view  of 
affairs  is  he  who  has  developed  etheric  and  astral 
sight  while  still  alive  in  the  physical  body. 

Another  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  disembodied  is 
that  he  by  no  means  always  recognises  with  any 
certainty  the  astral  counterpart  of  the  physical  body 
even  when  he  sees  it.  He  usually  requires  considera- 
ble experience  before  he  can  clearly  identify  objects, 
and  any  attempt  which  he  makes  to  deal  with  them 
is  liable  to  be  very  vague  and  uncertain,  as  is  often 
seen  in  haunted  houses  where  stone-throwing,  tramp- 
ling, or  vague  movements  of  physical  matter  take 
place.  This  power  of  the  identification  of  objects  is 
thus  largely  a  question  of  experience  and  knowledge, 
but  it  is  little  likely  to  be  perfect  unless  he  has  known 
something  of  such  matters  before  death. 

A  correspondent  writes  to  ask  whether  a  dead  man 
can  enjoy  the  astral  counterpart  of  a  play  at  a 
theatre,  and  whether  there  will  be  room  for  him 
there  if  the  building  is  already  full  of  people. 

Certainly  a  theatre  full  of  people  has  its  astral 
counterpart,  which  is  visible  to  dead  people.  The 
play,  however,  is  not  likely  to  afford  them  any  enjoy- 
ment, since  they  cannot  see  the  costumes   and  the 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  DEAD  TO  EARTH  9 

expression  of  the  actors  at  all  as  we  see  them,  and 
the  emotions  of  these  actors,  being  only  simulated 
and  not  real,  make  no  impression  upon  the  astral 
plane.  Astral  bodies  can  and  constantly  do  inter- 
penetrate one  another  fully,  without  in  the  least  in- 
juring one  another.  If  you  will  think  for  a  moment 
you  will  see  that  this  must  be  so.  When  you  sit  next 
to  any  person  in  a  railway  carriage  or  in  a  tram-car 
your  astral  body  and  his  must  necessarily  interpene- 
trate to  a  very  large  extent.  There  is  not  the  slight- 
est difficulty  in  such  interpenetration,  since  the 
astral  particles  are  enormously  farther  apart  in  pro- 
portion to  their  size  even  than  physical  particles 
are.  At  the  same  time  they  seriously  affect  one  an- 
other as  far  as  their  rates  of  vibration  are  con- 
cerned, so  that  to  sit  in  close  proximity  to  a  person 
of  impure,  jealous  or  angry  thought  is  exceedingly 
prejudicial.  A  dead  friend  can,  therefore,  quite  easily 
enter  a  theatre  which  is  full  of  people — more  es- 
pecially as  the  people  are  seated  upon  the  ground  or 
the  platforms,  while  the  astral  entity  is  far  more 
probably  floating  about  in  the  air. 

The  man  who  commits  suicide  runs  away  from 
school  before  the  appointed  lesson  is  learnt;  he  is 
guilty  of  the  great  presumption  involved  in  taking 
into  his  own  hands  a  decision  which  should  be  left 
to  the  working  of  the  Great  Law.  The  consequences 
of  so  great  a  rebellion  against  nature  are  always  of 
a  momentous  character.  They  are  certain  to  affect 
the  next  life,  and  quite  probably  more  lives  than  one. 
The  circumstances  surrounding  a  suicide  immedi- 
ately after  death  are  the  same  as  they  would  be  for 
the  victim  of  an  accident,  since  both  of  them  arrive 
upon  the  astral  plane  with  equal  suddenness.  But 
there  is  the  enormous  difference  that  the  man  who 


10  THE  INNER  LIFE 

dies  by  accident,  not  expecting  death,  is  thrown  into 
a  condition  of  unconsciousness,  and  usually  passes 
through  the  lowest  sub-plane  without  knowing  any- 
thing of  its  varied  unpleasantness.  The  suicide,  on 
the  contrary,  has  acted  deliberately,  and  is  gener- 
ally painfully  aware  of  much  that  is  horrible  and  re- 
pugnant to  him.  He  cannot  be  saved  from  the  sights 
and  feelings  which  he  has  brought  upon  himself;  but 
he  may  often  be  helped  to  understand  them,  and  may 
be  inspired  with  patience,  perseverance  and  hope  by 
the  good  offices  of  some  kind  friend. 

While  fully  recognising  that  suicide  is  a  mistake, 
and  a  most  serious  one,  we  are  not  called  upon  to 
judge  our  brother  who  commits  that  mistake.  There 
is  a  wide  difference  between  different  cases,  and  it 
is  impossible  for  us  to  know  the  various  factors  which 
enter  into  each,  although  every  one  of  them  is  duly 
taken  into  account  in  the  working  of  the  law  of 
eternal  justice. 

In  trying  to  estimate  the  conditions  of  a  man's 
life  on  the  astral  plane  after  death,  there  are  two 
prominent  factors  to  be  considered — the  length  of 
time  which  he  stays  upon  any  particular  sub-plane, 
and  the  amount  of  his  consciousness  upon  it.  The 
length  of  a  man's  stay  upon  any  sub-plane  depends, 
as  has  been  said,  upon  the  amount  of  matter  belong- 
ing to  that  sub-plane  he  has  built  into  himself  dur- 
ing earth-life. 

But  the  amount  of  consciousness  that  a  person 
will  have  upon  a  given  sub-plane  does  not  invariably 
follow  precisely  the  same  law.  Let  us  consider  an 
extreme  example  of  possible  variation,  in  order  that 
we  may  grasp  its  method.  Suppose  a  man  has 
brought  over  from  his  past  incarnation  tendencies 
requiring  for  their  manifestation  a  large  amount  of 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  DEAD  TO  EARTH         11 

the  matter  of  the  lowest  sub-plane,  and  has  in  his 
present  life  been  fortunate  enough  to  learn  in  his 
earliest  years  the  possibility  and  the  necessity  of  con- 
trolling these  tendencies.  It  is  improbable  that  such 
a  man's  efforts  at  control  would  be  uniformly  and 
entirely  successful;  but  if  they  were,  the  substitu- 
tion of  finer  for  grosser  particles  would  progress 
steadily  though  slowly. 

This  process  is  at  best  a  gradual  one,  and  it  might 
well  happen  that  the  man  died  before  it  was  half  com- 
pleted. In  that  case  there  would  undoubtedly  be 
enough  matter  of  the  lowest  sub-plane  left  in  his 
astral  body  to  ensure  him  no  inconsiderable  residence 
there;  but  it  would  be  matter  through  which  in  this 
incarnation  his  consciousness  had  never  been  in  the 
habit  of  functioning,  and,  as  it  could  not  suddenly 
acquire  this  habit,  the  result  would  be  that  the  man 
would  rest  upon  that  sub-plane  until  his  share  of  its 
matter  was  disintegrated,  but  would  be  all  the  while 
in  a  condition  of  unconsciousness — that  is,  he  would 
practically  sleep  through  the  period  of  his  sojourn 
there,  and  so  would  be  entirely  unaffected  by  its  many 
disagreeables. 

It  will  be  seen  that  both  these  factors  of  post- 
mortem existence — the  sub-plane  to  which  the  man 
is  carried  and  the  degree  of  his  consciousness  there 
— depend  not  in  the  least  on  the  nature  of  his  death, 
but  upon  the  nature  of  his  life,  so  that  any  accident, 
however  sudden  or  terrible,  can  scarcely  affect  them. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  reason  behind  the  familiar  old 
prayer  of  the  Church:  "From  sudden  death,  good 
Lord,  deliver  us;"  for  though  a  sudden  death  docs 
not  necessarily  affect  the  man's  position  upon  the 
astral  plane  in  any  way  for  the  worse,  at  least  it 
does  nothing  to  improve  it,  whereas  the  slow  wast- 


12  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ing  away  of  the  aged  or  the  ravages  of  any  kind  of 
long-continued  disease  are  almost  invariably  accom- 
panied by  a  considerable  loosening  and  breaking  up 
of  the  astral  particles,  so  that  when  the  man  re- 
covers consciousness  upon  the  astral  plane,  he  finds 
some  at  any  rate  of  his  chief  work  there  already 
done  for  him. 

The  great  mental  terror  and  disturbance  which 
sometimes  accompany  accidental  death  are  in  them- 
selves a  very  unfavourable  preparation  for  the  astral 
life;  indeed,  cases  have  been  known  in  which  such 
agitation  and  terror  persisted  after  death,  though 
that  is  happily  rare.  Still,  the  popular  desire  to 
have  some  time  in  which  to  prepare  for  death  is  not 
a  mere  superstition,  but  has  a  certain  amount  of 
reason  at  the  back  of  it.  Naturally,  to  anyone  who 
is  leading  the  Theosophical  life  it  will  make  but 
little  difference  whether  the  transition  from  the 
physical  plane  to  the  astral  comes  slowly  or  quickly, 
since  he  is  all  the  time  doing  his  best  to  make  as 
much  progress  as  possible,  and  the  object  before 
him  will  remain  the  same  in  either  case. 

To  sum  up  then:  it  seems  clear  that  death  by  acci- 
dent does  not  necessarily  involve  any  lengthy  resi- 
dence on  the  lowest  level  of  the  astral  plane,  though 
it  may  in  one  sense  be  said  slightly  to  prolong  such 
residence,  since  it  deprives  the  victim  of  the  oppor- 
tunity of  burning  out  the  particles  belonging  to  that 
level  during  the  sufferings  of  a  lingering  disease. 
In  the  case  of  young  children  it  is  exceedingly  un- 
likely that  in  their  short  and  comparatively  blame- 
less young  lives  they  will  have  developed  much 
affinity  for  the  lowest  subdivisions  of  astral  life;  in- 
deed, as  a  matter  of  practical  experience  they  are 
hardly  ever  to  be  found  in  connection  with  that  sub- 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  DEAD  TO  EARTH         13 

plane  at  all.  In  any  case,  whether  they  die  by  acci- 
dent or  disease,  their  life  on  the  astral  plane  is  a 
comparatively  short  one;  the  heaven-life,  though 
much  longer,  is  still  in  reasonable  proportion  to  it, 
and  their  early  reincarnation  follows  as  soon  as  the 
forces  which  they  have  been  able  to  set  in  motion 
during  their  short  earth-lives  work  themselves  out, 
precisely  as  we  might  expect  from  our  observation 
of  the  action  of  the  same  great  law  in  the  case  of 
adults. 

Nothing  that  is  likely  to  be  done  in  ordinary  life 
to  his  physical  corpse  need  make  any  difference 
whatever  to  the  man  living  on  the  astral  plane.  I 
am  obliged  to  make  these  two  reservations  because, 
in  the  first  case,  outside  of  ordinary  life  there  are 
certain  horrible  magical  rites  which  would  very 
seriously  affect  the  condition  of  the  man  on  the  other 
plane,  and  in  the  second,  although  the  state  of  the 
physical  corpse  need  not  make  any  difference  to  the 
real  man,  it  nevertheless  sometimes  does,  by  reason 
of  his  ignorance  or  foolishness.  Let  me  endeavour 
to  explain. 

The  length  of  a  man's  astral  life  after  he  has 
put  off  his  physical  body  depends  mainly  upon  two 
factors — the  nature  of  his  past  physical  life,  and  his 
attitude  of  mind  after  what  we  call  death.  During 
his  earth-life  he  is  constantly  influencing  the  building 
of  matter  into  his  astral  body.  He  affects  it  directly 
by  the  passions,  emotions  and  desires  which  he  allows 
to  hold  sway  over  him;  he  affects  it  indirectly  by  the 
action  upon  it  of  his  thoughts  from  above,  and  of  all 
the  details  of  his  physical  life  (his  continence  or  his 
debauchery,  his  cleanliness  or  his  uncleanliness,  his 
food  and  his  drink)  from  below.  If,  by  persistence  in 
perversity  along  any  of  these  lines,  he  is  so  stupid  as 


14  THE  INNER  LIFE 

to  build  for  himself  a  coarse  and  gross  astral  vehicle, 
habituated  to  responding  only  to  the  lower  vibrations 
of  the  plane,  he  will  find  himself  after  death  bound 
to  that  plane  during  the  long  and  slow  process  of 
that  body's  disintegration.  On  the  other  hand  if,  by 
decent  and  careful  living,  he  gives  himself  a  vehicle 
mainly  composed  of  finer  material,  he  will  have  very 
much  less  post-mortem  trouble  and  discomfort,  and 
his  evolution  will  proceed  much  more  rapidly  and 
easily. 

This  much  is  generally  understood,  but  the  second 
great  factor — his  attitude  of  mind  after  death — 
seems  often  to  be  forgotten.  The  desirable  thing  is 
for  him  to  realise  his  position  on  this  little  arc  of  his 
evolution — to  learn  that  he  is  at  this  stage  with- 
drawing steadily  inward  towards  the  plane  of  the 
true  ego,  and  that  consequently  it  is  his  business  to 
disengage  his  thought  as  far  as  may  be  from  things 
physical,  and  fix  his  attention  more  and  more  upon 
those  spiritual  matters  which  will  occupy  him  during 
his  life  in  the  heaven-world.  By  doing  this  he  wTill 
greatly  facilitate  the  natural  astral  disintegration, 
and  will  avoid  the  sadly  common  mistake  of  unneces- 
sarily delaying  himself  upon  the  lower  levels  of 
what  should  be  so  temporary  a  residence. 

Many  people,  however,  simply  will  not  turn  their 
thoughts  upwards,  but  spend  their  time  in  strug- 
gling with  all  their  might  to  keep  in  touch  with  the 
physical  plane  wrhich  they  have  left,  thus  causing 
great  trouble  to  anyone  who  may  be  trying  to  help 
them.  Earthly  matters  are  the  only  ones  in  which 
they  have  ever  had  any  living  interest,  and  they 
cling  to  them  with  desperate  tenacity  even  after 
death.  Naturally,  as  time  passes  on,  they  find  it  in- 
creasingly   difficult    to    keep    hold    of    things    down 


THE  RELATION  OF  THE  DEAD  TO  EARTH  15 

here,  but  instead  of  welcoming  and  encouraging  this 
process  of  gradual  refinement  and  spiritualisation 
they  resist  it  vigorously  by  every  means  in  their 
power.  The  mighty  force  of  evolution  is  eventually 
too  strong  for  them,  and  they  are  swept  on  in  its 
beneficent  current,  yet  they  fight  every  step  of  the 
way,  thereby  not  only  causing  themselves  a  vast 
amount  of  entirely  unnecessary  pain  and  sorrow, 
but  also  seriously  delaying  their  upward  progress. 

Now,  in  this  ignorant  and  disastrous  opposition 
to  the  cosmic  will  a  man  is  much  assisted  by  the  pos- 
session of  his  physical  corpse  as  a  kind  of  fulcrum 
on  this  plane.  He  is  naturally  in  close  rapport  with 
it,  and  if  he  is  so  misguided  as  to  wish  to  do  so,  he 
can  use  it  as  an  anchor  to  hold  him  down  firmly  to  the 
mud  until  its  decomposition  is  far  advanced.  Crema- 
tion saves  the  man  from  himself  in  this  matter,  for, 
when  the  physical  body  has  been  thus  properly  dis- 
posed of,  his  boats  are  literally  burned  behind  him, 
and  his  power  of  holding  back  is  happily  greatly 
diminished. 

We  see  therefore  that,  while  neither  the  burial  nor 
the  embalming  of  a  corpse  can  in  any  way  force  the 
ego  to  whom  it  once  belonged  to  prolong  his  stay 
upon  the  astral  plane  against  his  will,  either  of 
those  causes  is  a  distinct  temptation  to  him  to  delay, 
and  immensely  facilitates  his  doing  so  if  he  should 
unfortunately  wish  it.  No  ego  of  any  advancement 
would  allow  himself  to  be  detained  upon  the  astral 
plane,  even  by  a  proceeding  so  foolish  as  the  embalm- 
ing of  his  corpse.  Whether  his  physical  vehicle  was 
burned  or  allowed  to  decay  slowly  in  the  usual  loath- 
some manner,  or  indefinitely  preserved  as  an  Egyp- 
tian mummy,  his  astral  body  would  pursue  its  own 
line  of  quick  disintegration  entirely  unaffected. 


10  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Among  the  many  advantages  gained  by  cremation 
the  principal  are  that  it  entirely  prevents  any  at- 
tempt at  partial  and  unnatural  temporary  reunion 
of  the  principles,  or  any  endeavour  to  make  use  of 
the  corpse  for  the  purposes  of  the  lower  magic — to 
say  nothing  of  the  many  dangers  to  the  living  which 
are  avoided  by  its  adoption. 


Conditions  after  Death 

Students  often  ask  whether  for  the  ordinary  man 
a  subconscious  or  an  active  existence  is  more  desira- 
ble on  the  astral  plane.  This  depends  upon  the 
nature  of  the  active  existence,  and  upon  the  stage  of 
development  of  the  ego  concerned.  The  ordinary 
man  dies  with  a  certain  amount  of  unexhausted  de- 
sire still  in  his  composition,  and  this  force  must  work 
itself  out  before  it  is  possible  for  him  to  sink  into  a 
subconscious  condition.  If  the  only  activity  possi- 
ble for  him  is  that  of  the  lower  desires,  it  is  ob- 
viously better  for  him  that  nothing  should  be  allowed 
to  interfere  with  his  sinking  into  comparative  un- 
consciousness as  soon  as  possible,  since  any  new 
karma  that  he  makes  is  little  likely  to  be  of  an  ad- 
vantageous kind. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  sufficiently  developed 
to  be  able  to  be  of  use  to  others  on  the  astral  plane, 
and  especially  if  he  has  already  been  in  the  habit  of 
working  there  during  sleep,  there  is  no  reason  why 
he  should  not  usefully  employ  the  time  of  his  en- 
forced sojourn  there,  though  it  would  be  inadvisable 
to  set  in  motion  new  forces  which  would  lengthen 


CONDITIONS  AFTER  DEATH  17 

that  sojourn.  Those  who  are  working  under  the 
direction  of  the  pupils  of  the  Masters  of  Wisdom  will 
naturally  avail  themselves  of  their  counsel,  since  they 
have  had  much  experience  along  these  lines,  and  can 
in  turn  consult  others  of  still  wider  knowledge. 

The  astral  life  may  be  directed  by  the  will,  just  as 
the  physical  life  may  be,  always  within  the  limits 
prescribed  in  each  case  by  karma — that  is  to  say,  by 
our  own  previous  action.  The  ordinary  man  has  little 
will-power  or  initiative,  and  is  very  much  the  crea- 
ture of  the  surroundings  which  he  has  made  for  him- 
self, on  the  astral  plane  as  on  the  physical;  but  a  de- 
termined man  can  always  make  the  best  of  his  con- 
ditions and  live  his  own  life  in  spite  of  them.  What 
has,  after  all,  been  caused  by  his  will  can  gradually 
be  changed  by  his  will,  if  time  permits. 

A  man  does  not  rid  himself  of  evil  tendencies  in 
the  astral  world  any  more  than  he  would  in  this 
life,  unless  he  definitely  works  to  that  end.  Many  of 
the  desires  which  are  so  strong  and  persistent  in  him 
are  such  as  need  a  physical  body  for  their  satisfac- 
tion, and  since  he  has  that  no  longer,  they  often 
cause  him  acute  and  prolonged  suffering;  but  in 
process  of  time  they  wear  themselves  out,  they  be- 
come as  it  were  atrophied,  and  die  down  because  of 
this  impossibility  of  fulfilment.  In  the  same  way  the 
matter  of  the  astral  body  slowly  wears  away  and  dis- 
integrates as  the  consciousness  is  gradually  with- 
drawn from  it  by  the  half-unconscious  effort  of  the 
ego,  and  thus  the  man  by  degrees  gets  rid  of  what 
ever  holds  him  back  from  the  heaven-world. 

But  the  worst  of  his  trouble  is  that  the  man  is 
generally  not  alive  to  the  necessity  of  getting  rid  of 
the  evil  which  detains  him.  It  is  obvious  that  if  he 
realises  the  facts  of  the  case  and  gives  his  mind  to 


18  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  work,  he  can  greatly  expedite  both  the  processes 
referred  to  above.  If  he  knows  that  it  is  his  business 
to  kill  out  earthly  desires,  and  to  withdraw  into  him- 
self as  quickly  as  may  be,  he  will  earnestly  set  him- 
self to  do  these  things;  instead  of  which  he  usually 
in  his  ignorance  broods  over  the  desires  and  so 
lengthens  their  life,  and  clings  desperately  to  the 
grossest  particles  of  astral  matter  as  long  as  he 
possibly  can,  because  the  sensation  connected  with 
them  seems  nearest  to  that  physical  life  for  which 
he  is  so  passionately  longing.  Thus  we  see  why  one 
of  the  most  important  parts  of  the  work  of  the  in- 
visible helpers  is  to  explain  facts  to  the  dead,  and 
also  why  even  a  merely  intellectual  knowledge  of 
Theosophical  truths  is  of  such  inestimable  value  to 
a  man. 

The  dead  man  when  he  first  arrives  upon  the  astral 
plane  by  no  means  always  realises  that  he  is  dead, 
and  even  when  that  fact  comes  home  to  him  it  does 
not  follow  that  he  at  once  understands  how  the  astral 
world  differs  from  the  physical.  In  the  physical 
world  man  is  the  slave  of  a  number  of  imperious 
necessities;  he  must  have  food  and  clothing  and 
shelter;  in  order  to  procure  these  he  must  have 
money;  and  in  most  cases  in  order  to  obtain  money 
he  must  do  some  kind  of  work.  All  this  is  so  much 
a  matter  of  course  to  us  down  here  that  the  man 
who  is  se^"  free  from  this  slavery  finds  it  difficult  for 
a  long  time  to  believe  that  he  is  really  free,  and  in 
many  cases  he  continues  unnecessarily  to  impose  upon 
himself  fetters  which  he  has  in  reality  cast  aside. 

So  we  sometimes  see  the  newly  dead  trying  to  eat 
— sitting  down  to  or  preparing  for  themselves  wholly 
imaginary  meals,  or  building  for  themselves  houses. 
I  have  actually  seen  a  man  in  the  summer-land  build- 


CONDITIONS  AFTER  DEATH  19 

ing  a  house  for  himself  stone  by  stone,  and  even 
though  he  made  each  of  these  stones  for  himself  by 
an  effort  of  his  thought,  he  did  not  yet  grasp  the  fact 
that  he  might  just  as  well  have  made  the  whole 
house  for  himself,  with  the  same  amount  of  trouble, 
by  a  single  effort  of  the  same  kind.  He  was  gradu- 
ally led  to  see  that,  by  the  discovery  that  the  stones 
had  no  weight,  which  showed  him  that  his  present 
conditions  differed  from  those  to  which  he  had  been 
used  on  earth,  and  so  led  him  to  investigate  further. 

In  the  summer-land  men  surround  themselves  with 
landscapes  of  their  own  construction,  though  some 
avoid  that  trouble  by  accepting  ready-made  the  land- 
scapes which  have  already  been  constructed  by  others. 
Men  living  on  the  sixth  sub-plane,  upon  the  surface 
of  the  earth,  find  themselves  surrounded  by  the  astral 
counterparts  of  physically  existing  mountains,  trees 
and  lakes,  and  consequently  are  not  under  the  neces- 
sity of  manufacturing  scenery  for  themselves;  but 
men  upon  the  higher  subplanes,  who  float  at  some 
distance  above  the  surface  of  the  earth,  usually  pro- 
vide themselves  with  whatever  scenery  they  desire, 
by  the  method  that  I  have  described. 

The  commonest  example  of  this  is  that  they  con- 
struct for  themselves  the  weird  scenes  described  in 
their  various  scriptures,  and  therefore  in  those 
regions  we  constantly  find  ourselves  in  presence  of 
clumsy  and  unimaginative  attempts  to  reproduce 
such  ideas  as  jewels  growing  upon  trees,  and  seas  of 
glass  mingled  with  fire,  and  creatures  which  are  full 
of  eyes  within,  and  deities  with  a  hundred  heads  and 
arms  to  correspond.  In  this  way,  as  a  consequence 
of  ignorance  and  prejudice  during  their  physical  life, 
many  men  do  a  great  deal  of  valueless  work  when 
they  might  be  employing  their  time  in  the  helping 
of  their  fellows. 


20  THE  INNER  LIFE 

To  the  man  who  has  studied  Theosophy  and  there- 
fore understands  these  higher  planes,  one  of  their 
pleasantest  characteristics  is  the  utter  restfulness  and 
freedom  which  comes  from  the  absence  of  all  these 
imperious  necessities  which  make  a  misery  out  of 
physical  life.  The  dead  man  is  the  only  absolutely 
free  man,  free  to  do  whatever  he  wills  and  to  spend 
his  time  as  he  chooses,  free  therefore  to  devote  the 
whole  of  his  energies  to  helping  his  fellows. 


Animal  Obsession 

We  are  familiar  with  the  idea  that  an  ego  on  its 
way  down  into  reincarnation  may  sometimes  be 
drawn  aside  from  its  course  and  indefinitely  delayed 
at  astral  levels  by  the  attraction  of  the  group-soul 
of  some  kind  of  animal  with  whose  characteristics 
it  is  in  too  close  affinity.  We  know  that  the  same 
affinity  sometimes  seizes  upon  a  soul  upon  the  astral 
plane  after  death,  and  detains  it  in  very  intimate 
association  with  an  animal  form,  and  also  that  as  the 
result  of  gross  cruelty  it  is  possible  to  be  karmically 
linked  to  an  animal,  and  to  suffer  most  horribly  with 
it.  All  this  was  described  by  Mrs.  Besant  as  follows, 
in  a  letter  to  an  Indian  paper,  which  was  reproduced 
in  The  Theosophic  Gleaner,  vol.  xv.  page  231: 

"The  human  ego  does  not  reincarnate  in  an  ani- 
mal, for  reincarnation  means  the  entering  into  a 
physical  vehicle  which  thereafter  belongs  to  and  is 
controlled  by  the  ego.  The  penal  connection  of  the 
human  ego  with  an  animal  form  is  not  reincarna- 
tion; for  the  animal  soul,  the  proper  owner  of  the 


ANIMAL  OBSESSION  21 

vehicle,  is  not  dispossessed,  nor  can  the  human  ego 
control  the  body  to  which  it  is  temporarily  attached. 
Nor  does  the  human  ego  become  an  animal,  nor  lose 
its  human  attributes,  while  undergoing  its  punish- 
ment. It  does  not  have  to  evolve  up  again  through 
the  successive  lower  stages  of  humanity,  but  on  be- 
ing set  free  at  once  takes  the  grade  of  human  form 
to  which  its  previous  evolution  entitles  it.  (See  the 
cases  of  Jada  Bharata,  and  of  the  Rishi's  wife  set  free 
by  the  touch  of  Rama's  feet — cases  which  show  that 
the  popular  idea  that  the  man  becomes  a  stone  or  an 
animal  is  erroneous.) 

"The  facts  are  these.  When  an  ego,  a  human  soul, 
by  vicious  appetite  or  otherwise,  forms  a  very  strong 
link  of  attachment  to  any  type  of  animal,  the  astral 
body  of  such  a  person  shows  the  corresponding  ani- 
mal characteristics,  and  in  the  astral  world — where 
thoughts  and  passions  are  visible  as  forms — may 
take  the  animal  shapes.  Thus,  after  death,  in  Preta- 
loka  the  soul  would  be  embodied  in  an  astral  vesture 
resembling,  or  approximating  to,  the  animal  whose 
qualities  had  been  encouraged  during  earth-life. 
Either  at  this  stage,  or  when  the  soul  is  returning 
towards  reincarnation,  and  is  again  in  the  astral 
world,  it  may  in  extreme  cases  be  linked  by  magnetic 
affinity  to  the  astral  body  of  the  animal  it  has  ap- 
proached in  character,  and  will  then,  through  the 
animal's  astral  body,  be  chained  as  a  prisoner  to  the 
animal's  physical  body.  Thus  chained,  it  cannot  go 
onwards  to  Svarga  if  the  tie  be  set  up  while  it  is  a 
Preta;  nor  go  onwards  to  human  birth  if  it  be  de- 
scending towards  physical  life.  It  is  truly  under- 
going penal  servitude,  chained  to  an  animal;  it  is 
conscious  in  the  astral  world,  has  its  human  facul- 
ties, but  it  cannot  control  the  brute  body  with  which 


22  THE  INNER  LIFE 

it  is  connected,  nor  express  itself  through  that  body 
on  the  physical  plane.  The  animal  organisation  does 
not  possess  the  mechanism  needed  by  the  human  ego 
for  self-expression;  it  can  serve  as  a  jailor,  not  as  a 
vehicle.  Further  the  animal  soul  is  not  ejected,  but 
is  the  proper  tenant  and  controller  of  its  own  body. 
Shri  Shankaracharya  hints  very  clearly  at  this  differ- 
ence between  this  penal  imprisonment  and  becoming 
a  stone,  a  tree  or  an  animal.  Such  an  imprisonment 
is  not  reincarnation,  and  to  call  it  by  that  name  is 
an  inaccuracy;  hence,  while  fully  conversant  with  the 
above  facts,  I  should  always  say  that  the  human  ego 
cannot  reincarnate  as  an  animal,  cannot  become  an 
animal.  This  is  not  the  only  experience  a  degraded 
soul  may  have  in  the  invisible  world,  of  which  hints 
may  be  found  in  the  Hindu  Shastras,  for  .  .  .  the 
statements  made  are  partial  and  very  incomplete. 

"In  cases  where  the  ego  is  not  degraded  enough 
for  absolute  imprisonment,  but  in  which  the  astral 
body  is  strongly  animalised,  it  may  pass  on  normally 
to  human  re-birth,  but  the  animal  characteristics 
will  be  largely  reproduced  in  the  physical  body — as 
witness  the  'monsters'  who  in  fact  are  sometimes 
repulsively  animal,  pig-faced,  dog-faced,  etc.  Men, 
by  yielding  to  the  most  bestial  vices,  entail  on  them- 
selves penalties  more  terrible  than  they  for  the  most 
part  realise,  for  nature's  laws  work  on  unbrokenly 
and  bring  to  every  man  the  harvest  of  the  seed  he 
sows.  The  suffering  entailed  on  the  conscious  human 
entity  thus  cut  off  for  the  time  from  progress  and 
from  self-expression  is  very  great,  and  is  of  course 
reformatory  in  its  action;  it  is  somewhat  similar  to 
that  endured  by  other  egos,  who  are  linked  to  bodies 
human  in  form,  but  without  healthy  brains — those 
we  call  idiots,  lunatics,  etc.    Idiocy  and  lunacy  are  the 


ANIMAL  OBSESSION  28 

results  of  vices  other  in  kind  from  those  that  bring 
about  the  animal  servitude  above  explained,  but  the 
ego  in  these  cases  also  is  attached  to  a  form  through 
which  he  cannot  express  himself." 

These  instances  are  the  explanation  (or  at  least 
a  part  of  the  explanation)  of  the  widely-spread  be- 
lief that  a  man  may  under  certain  circumstances 
reincarnate  in  an  animal  body.  In  Oriental  books, 
what  we  should  call  three  stages  of  one  life  are  quite 
commonly  spoken  of  as  separate  lives.  It  is  said 
that  when  a  man  dies  to  the  physical  plane  he  is  re- 
born at  once  on  the  astral  plane — meaning  simply 
that  his  specially  and  wholly  astral  life  begins  then; 
and  in  the  same  way  what  we  should  describe  as  the 
passing  into  the  heaven-life  is  called  a  death  on  the 
astral  plane  and  a  rebirth  at  the  higher  level.  This 
being  so,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  one  of  the  ab- 
normal cases  above  mentioned  might  be  described  as 
'rebirth  as  an  animal/  although  it  is  not  at  all  what 
we  should  mean  by  such  a  term  if  we  employed  it  in 
Theosophical  literature. 

In  recent  investigations  our  attention  has  been 
drawn  to  a  type  of  case  differing  somewhat  from 
either  of  the  above  in  that  the  link  with  the  animal 
is  intentionally  made  by  the  human  being,  in  order 
to  escape  from  something  which  he  feels  to  be  far 
worse.  No  doubt  this  type  also  was  known  to  the 
ancients,  and  forms  one  of  the  classes  referred  to  in 
the  tradition  of  animal  incarnations.  Let  me  en- 
deavour to  explain  it. 

When  a  man  dies,  the  etheric  part  of  his  physical 
body  is  withdrawn  from  the  denser  part,  and  shortly 
afterwards  (usually  within  a  few  hours)  the  astral 
breaks  away  from  the  etheric,  and  the  man's  life  on 
the  astral  plane  is  begun.    Normally  the  man  is  un- 


24  THE  INNER  LIFE 

conscious  until  he  has  freed  himself  from  the  etheric, 
and  so  when  he  awakens  to  a  new  life  it  is  that  of 
the  astral  plane.  But  there  are  some  people  who 
cling  so  desperately  to  material  existence  that  their 
astral  vehicles  cannot  altogether  separate  from  the 
etheric,  and  they  awaken  still  surrounded  by  etheric 
matter. 

The  etheric  body  is  only  a  part  of  the  physical, 
and  is  not  in  itself  a  vehicle  of  consciousness — not  a 
body  in  which  a  man  can  live  and  function.  So  these 
poor  people  are  in  a  very  unpleasant  condition,  sus- 
pended as  it  were  between  two  planes.  They  are 
shut  out  from  the  astral  world  by  the  shell  of  etheric 
matter  which  surrounds  them,  and  at  the  same  time 
they  have  lost  the  physical  sense-organs  by  which 
alone  they  can  come  fully  into  touch  with  the  world 
of  ordinary  earth-life. 

The  result  is  that  they  drift  about,  lonely,  dumb 
and  terrified,  in  a  thick  and  gloomy  fog,  unable  to 
hold  intercourse  with  the  denizens  of  either  plane, 
glimpsing  sometimes  other  drifting  souls  in  their  own 
unfortunate  positions,  yet  powerless  to  communicate 
even  with  them,  incapable  of  joining  them  or  of  ar- 
resting their  aimless  wandering  as  they  are  swept  on 
and  engulfed  in  the  rayless  night.  Now  and  again 
the  etheric  veil  may  part  sufficiently  to  permit  one 
glance  into  lower  astral  scenes,  but  that  is  rarely  en- 
couraging, and  indeed  is  often  mistaken  for  a  glimpse 
into  hell;  sometimes  for  a  moment  some  familiar 
earthly  object  may  be  half -seen — usually  from  pass- 
ing contact  with  a  strong  thought-image;  but  such 
rare  and  tantalising  liftings  of  the  fog  only  make  its 
darkness  the  more  soul-shaking  and  hopeless  when 
it  shuts  down  again. 

All  the  while  the  poor  soul  cannot  realise  that  if 


ANIMAL  OBSESSION  25 

he  would  but  let  go  his  frenzied  grasp  on  matter  he 
would  slip  at  once  (through  a  few  moments  of  uncon- 
sciousness) into  the  ordinary  life  of  the  astral  plane. 
But  it  is  just  that  feeling  that  he  cannot  bear — the 
feeling  of  losing  even  the  miserable  half-conscious- 
ness that  he  has;  he  clings  even  to  the  horrors  of 
this  grey  world  of  all-embracing  fog  rather  than  let 
himself  sink  into  what  seems  to  him  a  sea  of  noth- 
ingness and  complete  extinction.  Occasionally,  as  the 
result  of  wicked  and  blasphemous  teaching  on  earth, 
he  fears  to  let  himself  go  lest  he  should  fall  into  hell. 
In  either  case,  his  suffering,  his  hopelessness  and 
utter  dreariness  are  usually  extreme. 

Out  of  this  unpleasant  but  self-imposed  predica- 
ment there  are  several  ways.  There  are  members  of 
our  band  of  invisible  helpers  who  devote  themselves 
ispecially  to  seeking  out  souls  who  are  in  this  painful 
condition,  and  trying  to  persuade  them  to  let  them- 
selves sink  out  of  it;  and  there  are  also  many  kindly 
people  among  the  dead  who  take  this  up  as  a  sort  of 
branch  of  astral  slum  work.  Sometimes  such  efforts 
are  successful,  but  on  the  whole  few  of  the  victims 
have  faith  and  courage  enough  to  let  go  their  hold 
on  what  to  them  is  life,  poor  apology  though  it  be. 
In  process  of  time  the  etheric  shell  wears  out,  and 
the  ordinary  course  of  nature  reasserts  itself  in  spite 
of  their  struggles;  and  sometimes  in  sheer  despair 
they  anticipate  this  result,  deciding  that  annihilation 
is  preferable  to  such  a  life,  and  so  recklessly  letting 
themselves  go — the  result  being  an  overwhelming  but 
pleasant  surprise  to  them. 

In  their  earlier  struggles,  however,  there  are  some 
who  are  so  unfortunate  as  to  discover  unnatural 
methods  of  reviving  to  some  extent  their  touch  with 
the  physical  plane  instead  of  sinking  into  the  astral. 


26  THE  INNER  LIFE 

They  can  do  this  readily  through  a  medium,  but 
usually  the  medium's  'spirit-guide'  sternly  forbids 
them  access.  He  is  quite  right  to  do  so,  for  in  their 
terror  and  their  great  need  they  are  often  utterly 
unscrupulous,  and  they  would  obsess  and  even  mad- 
den the  medium,  fighting  as  a  drowning  man  fights 
for  life;  and  all  absolutely  uselessly,  since  the  event- 
ual result  could  only  be  to  prolong  their  sufferings  by 
strengthening  that  material  part  of  which  most  of 
all  they  should  get  rid. 

Occasionally  they  contrive  to  seize  upon  some  one 
who  is  unconsciously  a  medium — some  sensitive  young 
girl,  usually;  but  they  can  be  successful  in  such  an 
attempt  only  when  the  ego  of  the  young  girl  has 
weakened  his  hold  on  his  vehicles  by  allowing  the  in- 
dulgence of  undesirable  thoughts  or  passions.  When 
the  ego's  relations  with  his  vehicles  are  normal  and 
healthy  he  cannot  be  dispossessed  by  the  frantic  efforts 
of  such  poor  souls  as  we  have  been  describing. 

An  animal,  however,  has  no  ego  behind  him, 
though  he  has  a  fragment  of  a  group-soul  which  may 
be  said  to  stand  for  him  in  the  place  of  an  ego.  The 
hold  of  this  fragment  upon  his  vehicles  is  by  no 
means  what  that  of  an  ego  would  be,  and  so  it  comes 
to  pass  that  what  for  the  moment  we  may  call  the 
'soul'  of  the  animal  can  be  dispossessed  much  more 
easily  than  that  of  a  man.  Sometimes,  as  I  have 
said,  the  human  soul  wandering  in  the  grey  world 
is  unfortunate  enough  to  discover  this,  and  so  in  his 
madness  he  obsesses  the  body  of  an  animal,  or  if  he 
cannot  quite  drive  out  the  animal  soul  he  contrives  to 
gain  partial  control,  so  as  to  share  the  tenement  to 
some  extent  with  the  rightful  owner.  In  such  a  case 
he  is  once  more  in  touch  with  the  physical  plane 
through  the   animal;  he  sees  through  the   animal's 


ANIMAL  OBSESSION  27 

eyes  (often  a  very  remarkable  experience)  and  he 
feels  any  pain  inflicted  upon  the  animal;  in  fact,  so 
far  as  his  own  consciousness  is  concerned,  he  is  the 
animal  for  the  time  being. 

An  old  and  respected  member  of  one  of  our  English 
Branches  related  that  he  had  received  a  visit  from  a 
man  who  came  to  ask  for  advice  under  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances. The  visitor  was  a  man  who  gave  the  im- 
pression of  having  seen  better  days,  but  he  had  fallen 
into  such  abject  poverty  that  he  was  compelled  to  take 
any  work  that  offered,  and  thus  it  happened  that  he 
had  become  a  slaughter-man  at  a  huge  abattoir'.  He 
declared  that  he  was  absolutely  unable  to  execute  his 
loathsome  task,  because  when  he  prepared  to  slaugh- 
ter the  creatures  he  was  constantly  checked  by  cries 
of  heart-rending  anguish,  and  by  voices  which  said: 
"Have  mercy  upon  us!  Do  not  strike,  for  we  are 
human  beings  entangled  with  these  animals,  and  we 
suffer  their  pain."  So,  since  he  had  heard  that  the 
Theosophical  Society  occupied  itself  with  unusual  and 
uncanny  matters,  he  came  to  it  to  ask  for  advice. 
No  doubt  this  man  was  somewhat  clairaudient,  or 
perhaps  simply  sensitive  enough  to  catch  the  thoughts 
of  these  poor  creatures  who  had  associated  them- 
selves with  the  animals,  and  these  thoughts  natur- 
ally symbolised  themselves  to  him  as  audible  cries 
for  mercy.  No  wonder  he  was  unable  to  continue 
his  occupation. 

This  may  well  give  pause  to  the  devourer  of  flesh, 
to  the  man  who  calls  the  murder  of  animals  'sport/ 
and  most  of  all  to  the  vivisector;  the  man  who  kills 
or  tortures  an  animal  may  be  inflicting  unspeaka- 
ble suffering  upon  a  human  being. 

I  have  little  doubt  that  the  possibility  for  a  ma- 
terial-minded   man    of   this    uncanny    blunder    is    at 


28  THE  INNER  LIFE 

least  part  of  the  rationale  of  the  belief  of  various 
tribes  that  certain  creatures  must  never  be  killed 
"lest  one  should  unawares  be  dispossessing  the  spirit 
of  an  ancestor."  For  the  man  who  thus  entangles 
himself  with  an  animal  cannot  abandon  that  ani- 
mal's body  at  will;  even  if  he  learnt  enough  to  make 
him  desire  to  withdraw,  he  could  do  so  only  gradu- 
ally and  by  considerable  effort,  extending  probably 
over  many  days.  It  is  usually  only  at  the  death  of 
the  animal  that  he  is  set  free,  and  even  then  there 
remains  an  astral  entanglement  to  shake  off.  After 
the  death  of  the  animal  such  a  soul  sometimes 
struggles  to  obsess  another  member  of  the  same 
herd,  or  indeed  any  other  creature  whom  he  can 
seize  in  his  desperation. 

I  have  noticed  that  animals  obsessed  or  semi- 
obsessed  by  human  beings  are  often  shunned  or 
feared  by  the  rest  of  the  herd,  and  indeed  they  are 
themselves  often  half-maddened  by  anger  and  terror 
at  the  strangeness  of  the  thing  and  at  their  own 
helplessness.  The  animals  most  commonly  seized 
upon  seem  to  be  the  less  developed  ones — cattle, 
sheep  and  swine.  More  intelligent  creatures,  such 
as  dogs,  cats  and  horses,  would  presumably  not  be 
so  easily  dispossessed — though  my  attention  was 
once  drawn  to  a  peculiarly  horrible  instance  in  which 
a  Catholic  priest  had  in  this  way  attached  himself 
to  a  cat.  Then  there  is  the  well-known  case  of  the 
monkey  of  Pandharpur,  who  betrayed  so  curious  a 
knowledge  of  Brahmana  ceremonies.  But  in  most 
cases  the  obsessing  soul  has  to  be  satisfied  with 
what  he  can  get,  for  the  effort  to  overpower  even  the 
more  stupid  beasts  usually  taxes  his  powers  to  the 
utmost. 

This    obsession    of    an    animal    seems    to    be    the 


ANIMAL  OBSESSION  29 

modern  substitute  for  the  awful  life  of  the  vam- 
pire. In  the  time  of  the  fourth  root-race,  men  who 
had  a  mad  clinging  to  material  life  sometimes  con- 
trived to  maintain  a  low  and  unspeakably  horrible 
form  of  it  in  their  own  physical  bodies  by  absorbing 
living  blood  from  others.  In  the  fifth  race  that 
happily  seems  no  longer  to  be  possible,  but  people 
of  the  same  type  occasionally  fall  into  this  snare  of 
animal  obsession — bad  enough,  indubitably,  but  still 
not  so  utterly  gruesome  and  disgusting  as  vampir- 
ism. So  even  in  its  very  worst  and  lowest  aspects 
the  world  is  improving! 

I  have  known  of  isolated  cases  of  two  other  types 
of  animal  connection;  one  in  which  a  wicked  dead 
person  was  in  the  habit  of  temporarily  seizing  the 
body  of  a  certain  animal  for  specific  evil  purposes, 
and  another  in  which  an  Oriental  magician  had,  as 
an  act  of  revenge  for  an  insult  to  his  religious 
faith,  mesmerically  linked  his  unhappy  victim  to  an 
animal  form  after  death.  This  could  be  done  only 
if  there  existed  in  the  victim  some  weakness  through 
which  such  a  magician  could  seize  upon  him,  and  if 
he  had  intentionally  done  something  which  gave  him 
a  karmic  hold  upon  him.  Normally  neither  of  these 
cases  would  be  at  all  possible. 

All  obsessions,  whether  of  a  human  or  an  animal 
body,  are  an  evil  and  a  hindrance  to  the  obsessing 
soul,  for  they  temporarily  strengthen  his  hold  upon 
the  material,  and  so  delay  his  natural  progress  into 
the  astral  life,  besides  of  course  making  all  sorts  of 
undesirable  karmic  links.  This  grey  life,  like  almost 
all  other  unpleasant  possibilities  connected  with  the 
life  after  death,  can  come  only  as  the  result  of  igno- 
rance of  the  real  conditions  of  that  life.  The  more 
we  learn  of  life  and  death,  the  more  emphatic  ap- 


30  THE  INNER  LIFE      . 

pears  the  duty  of  making  every  effort  to  spread  the 
knowledge  of  Theosophy,  for  it  becomes  ever  clearer 
and  clearer  that  in  that  knowledge  is  life  and  happi- 
ness and  progress  for  all. 


Individualised  Animals 

When  an  individualised  animal  dies  he  has  a  happy 
astral  life  of  considerable  length,  during  which  he 
usually  remains  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
his  earthly  home  and  in  the  closest  touch  with  his 
especial  friend  and  protector — able  to  see  and  enjoy 
the  society  of  his  friend  as  fully  as  ever,  though 
himself  invisible  to  the  latter,  his  memory  of  the  past 
being  of  course  just  as  perfect  as  it  was  on  earth. 
This  will  be  followed  by  a  still  happier  period  of 
what  has  sometimes  been  called  dozing  consciousness, 
which  will  last  until  in  some  future  world  the  human 
form  is  assumed.  During  all  this  time  he  is  in  a 
state  analogous  to  that  of  a  human  being  in  the 
heaven-world,  though  at  a  somewhat  lower  level.  He 
creates  his  own  surroundings,  even  though  he  may  be 
but  drowsily  conscious  of  them,  and  they  will  un- 
doubtedly include  the  presence  of  his  earth-friend  in 
his  very  best  and  most  sympathetic  mood.  For 
every  entity  which  comes  into  connection  with  it, 
whether  only  just  entering  upon  human  evolution 
or  preparing  to  pass  beyond  it,  the  heaven-world 
means  the  highest  bliss  of  which  that  entity  is,  at  his 
level,  capable. 


LOCALISATION  OF  STATES  31 


Localisation  of  States 

The  idea  of  location  applies  to  the  sub-planes  of  the 
astral,  but  only  to  a  limited  extent.  Matter  of  all -the 
stages  undoubtedly  surrounds  us  here  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth,  and  the  living  man,  employing  his  astral 
body  during  the  sleep  of  the  physical,  comes  into 
touch  with  them  all  simultaneously,  and  is  able  to 
receive  impressions  from  them  all.  That  is,  if  I, 
using  my  astral  body  during  sleep,  look  at  another 
living  man's  astral  body,  I  see  the  whole  of  it,  includ- 
ing of  course  matter  of  every  sub-plane.  But  in  the 
case  of  the  average  dead  man,  there  has  been  a  re- 
arrangement of  the  matter  of  his  astral  body,  -con- 
sequent upon  the  proceedings  of  what  is  commonly 
called  the  desire-elemental,  and  broadly  speaking  only 
one  type  of  astral  matter  is  available  to  receive  im- 
pressions. 

What  we  usually  call  'sight'  on  the  astral  plane  is 
not  really  sight  at  all,  for  that  word  implies  the  use 
of  an  organ  specialised  to  receive  certain  vibrations. 
Astral  cognition  is  arranged  on  an  entirely  different 
scheme.  It  has  often  been  said  that  a  man  can  'see' 
with  any  part  of  his  astral  body — that  is,  every  par- 
ticle of  that  body  is  capable  of  receiving  impressions 
from  without  and  transmitting  them  to  the  con- 
sciousness within.  But  every  particle  is  not  capable 
of  receiving  every  possible  impression. 

For  example,  I  became  cognizant  of  the  lowest 
kind  of  astral  matter  only  by  means  of  matter  of  the 
same  subdivision  existing  in  my  own  astral  body; 
and  I  receive  its  vibrations  through  the  particles  of 


82  THE  INNER  LIFE 

that  lowest  type  of  matter  which  happen  to  be  at  the 
moment  on  the  surface  of  my  astral  body.  Since 
during  life  all  the  particles  of  the  astral  body  are 
constantly  in  motion  among  themselves,  much  as 
are  the  particles  of  a  boiling  liquid,'  it  inevitably 
happens  that  all  the  subdivisions  of  matter  are  repre- 
sented upon  the  surface  of  the  astral  body,  and  that 
is  why  I  am  able  to  see  all  the  stages  simultaneously. 
The  ordinary  man  after  death  has  for  practical  pur- 
poses only  one  type  of  matter  outside,  because  of  the 
concentric  shell  arrangement;  therefore  his  view  of 
the  astral  world  around  him  is  a  very  imperfect  one. 

If  he,  immured  in  a  shell  of  matter  of  the  lowest 
stage,  looks  at  a  living  man's  astral  body,  he  can  see 
only  that  part  of  it  which  consists  of  that  lowest 
type  of  matter;  but  as  he  has  no  means  of  realising 
the  limitation  of  his  faculties,  he  inevitably  assumes 
that  he  sees  the  whole  of  the  other  man's  astral 
body,  and  therefore  that  the  other  man  is  a  person 
possessing  no  characteristics  but  those  eminently  un- 
satisfactory ones  which  alone  express  themselves 
through  matter  of  that  particular  subdivision. 

He  is  living  in  the  midst  of  all  sorts  of  high  in- 
fluences and  beautiful  thought-forms,  but  is  almost 
entirely  unconscious  of  their  existence,  because  those 
particles  of  his  astral  body  which  could  respond  to 
their  vibrations  are  carefully  shut  in  where  they 
cannot  be  reached.  That  lowest  type  of  astral  mat- 
ter corresponds  to  the  solid  subdivision  of  physical 
matter,  and  the  astral  counterpart  of  any  solid 
physical  object  is  composed  of  that  lowest  subdi- 
vision of  astral  matter — the  seventh  class  of  astral 
matter,  if  we  number  the  sub-planes  from  above  down- 
wards. The  astral  counterparts  of  the  floor,  walls 
and  furniture  of  a  room  are  all  of  the  lowest  type  of 


LOCALISATION  OF  STATES  33 

astral  matter,  and  consequently  the  man  newly  dead 
usually  sees  these  counterparts  vividly,  and  is  almost 
entirely  unconscious  of  the  vast  sea  of  thought-forms 
which  encompasses  him,  because  nearly  all  those 
forms  are  built  out  of  combinations  of  the  finer  types 
of  astral  matter. 

In  process  of  time,  as  the  consciousness  steadily 
withdraws  inward,  the  shell  of  this  coarsest  type  of 
matter  atrophies  and  begins  to  disintegrate,  and 
matter  of  a  somewhat  higher  type  is  as  it  were  un- 
covered, and  becomes  the  surface  through  which  im- 
pressions can  be  received.  Since  this  usually  hap- 
pens gradually,  it  means  that  the  man  finds  the 
counterparts  of  physical  objects  growing  dimmer 
and  dimmer,  while  the  thought-forms  become  more 
and  more  vivid  to  him,  so  that  without  necessarily 
moving  at  all  in  space,  he  finds  himself  living  in  a 
different  world.  If  while  this  process  is  going  on  he 
should  encounter  you  at  intervals  he  will  be  sensible 
of  what  will  appear  to  him  as  a  great  improvement 
in  your  character — not  that  you  have  necessarily 
changed,  but  that  he  is  becoming  able  to  appreciate 
the  higher  vibrations  of  that  character,  and  is  losing 
the  power  to  receive  the  lower  ones.  Your  dispo- 
sition may  remain  just  what  it  was,  but  the  dead 
man,  having  commenced  by  seeing  only  its  worst  fea- 
tures, will  pass  it  all  slowly  in  review  until  presently 
he  reaches  a  condition  in  which  only  the  best  and 
highest  side  of  it  is  within  his  consciousness. 

This  then  is  what  is  meant  by  passing  from  one  sub- 
plane  to  another — that  the  man  loses  sight  of  one 
part  of  the  wonderful  complexity  which  is  the  astral 
world,  and  that  another  part  of  it  comes  into  his 
view.  It  is  after  all  only  a  repetition  on  a  smaller 
scale  of  what  happens  to  each  one  of  us  as  we  pass 


34  THE  INKER  LIFE 

from  plane  to  plane.     The  whole  astral   world  and 
the  whole  mental  world  are  both  of  them  around  us 
here  and  now,  yet  so  long  as  our  consciousness   is 
focussed   in  the   physical  brain   we   are   blankly   un- 
conscious  of   them.     At   death   the   consciousness   is 
transferred  to  the  astral  body,  and  at  once  we  find 
ourselves  seeing  the  astral  part  of  our  world,  having 
lost  sight  of  the  physical.    When  later  on  we  lose  the 
astral  body  in  turn,  and  live  in  the  mental  body,  we 
are   then   conscious    (though   only   partially)    of   the 
mental  part  of  our  world,  and  have  altogether  lost 
for  the  time  both  the  astral  and  the  physical.     Just 
as  it  is  possible  for  the  man  living  on  the  astral  plane 
to  defy  the  desire-elemental  and  insist  upon  keeping 
the  particles  of  his  astral  body  in  constant  motion, 
just  as  they  were  during  his  physical  life,  so  it  is 
possible  for  the  man  still  in  physical  life  to  train 
himself  to   have   at   his   command   the   physical   and 
astral    and    mental    consciousness    practically    simul- 
taneously; but  this  means  considerable  advancement. 
To  sum  up  the  foregoing,  then:     'rising  higher'  in 
the    ordinary    spiritualistic    sense    is    simply    raising 
the  consciousness  from  one  stage  of  the  astral  to  an- 
other, the  matter  of  the  astral  body  having  in  the 
first  place  been  arranged  after  death  by  the  desire- 
elemental.     In  such  a  case  the  consciousness  can  act 
only  through  the  shell  of  matter  which  lies  outer- 
most, and  consequently  at  first  the  dead  man  is  con- 
fined to  the  perception  of  the  lowest  subplane,  and 
can  only  become  conscious  of  a  higher  sub-plane  when 
that  outer  coating  of  denser  matter  is  in  great  part 
worn  away.     Consequently  such  a  man  in  the  earlier 
part  of  his  post-mortem  existence  is  naturally  shut 
off  from  all  the  best  and  pleasantest  part  of  astral 
life;   and   when   he   escapes   from  that  condition   he 
may  in  one  sense  be  said  to  have  risen  higher. 


LOCALISATION  OF  STATES  35 

A  Theosophist,  who  comprehends  the  conditions  of 
the  astral  plane,  altogether  declines  to  permit  the  re- 
arrangement of  his  astral  body  by  the  desire-elemen- 
tal in  the  first  place;  or  if  that  should  happen  during 
the  momentary  unconsciousness  which  immediately 
succeeds  death,  those  of  us  who  are  trying  to  help 
the  man  immediately  break  up  the  elemental's  ar- 
rangement and  restore  the  astral  body  to  exactly  the 
condition  in  which  it  was  during  life,  with  ail  its 
varieties  of  matter  mingled  in  the  natural  way,  so 
that  the  dead  man  can  perceive  the  whole  of  the  astral 
plane,  instead  of  only  one  subdivision  of  it.  In  this 
way  his  astral  life  is  perfect  from  the  first,  and  he 
can  be  a  much  more  useful  person  than  if  he  were 
confined  to  the  consciousness  of  one  subdivision  only. 

Still,  as  I  explained  in  The  Inner  Life,  Vol.  I,  in  the 
chapter  on  spheres,  there  is  just  this  much  of  truth  be- 
hind the  idea  of  location  as  connected  with  the  sub- 
planes.  Here  on  the  surface  of  the  earth  we  are  in 
presence  of  matter  in  the  solid,  liquid,  gaseous  and 
etheric  conditions.  But  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that, 
broadly  speaking,  the  solid  matter  forms  the  basis, 
that  the  liquid  matter  is  usually  resting  upon  it,  and 
that  the  gaseous  matter  rests  upon  both  of  these 
lower  forms.  There  is  a  certain  amount  of  solid 
matter  and  a  great  deal  of  liquid  matter  floating  in 
the  air  above  us,  but  still  it  remains  broadly  true 
that  the  zone  of  solid  matter  is  limited  by  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth,  and  the  zone  of  liquid  matter  by 
the  upper  surface  of  the  clouds,  while  the  zone  of 
gaseous  matter  extends  a  great  many  miles  above 
that,  and  the  zone  of  specialised  etheric  matter  a  great 
deal  farther  still.  So  that  although  all  classes  of 
matter  exist  around  us  here,  we  might  yet  say  that 
in  one  sense  each  has  a  zone  of  its  own,  and  that  in 


36  THE  INNER  LIFE 

each  case  the  zone  of  a  finer  type  of  matter  extends 
somewhat  farther  from  the  centre  of  the  earth  than 
the  zone  of  the  denser  type  of  matter  next  below  it. 

A  similar  condition  exists  with  regard  to  astral 
matter.  All  possible  kinds  of  it  exist  here  close  about 
us,  and  the  great  majority  of  the  denizens  of  the 
astral  world  spend  most  of  their  lives  comparatively 
near  to  the  surface  of  the  physical  earth;  but  as  they 
withdraw  into  themselves,  and  their  consciousness 
touches  the  higher  types  of  matter,  they  find  it  easier 
and  more  natural  than  before  to  soar  away  from 
that  surface  into  regions  where  there  are  fewer  dis- 
turbing currents.  I  was  once  brought  into  touch 
with  the  case  of  a  dead  man  who  informed  a  friend 
of  mine,  during  a  series  of  spiritualistic  seances, 
that  he  frequently  found  himself  about  five  hundred 
miles  above  the  surface  of  the  earth.  In  this  case 
the  questioner  was  one  who  was  well  versed  in  occult- 
ism, and  who  would  therefore  know  well  how  to  con- 
duct his  enquiries  and  the  investigations  of  his  friend 
on  the  other  side  intelligently  and  scientifically;  so 
that  there  might  well  be  some  truth  in  his  friend's 
assertions. 

The  finer  types  of  astral  matter  extend  almost  to 
the  orbit  of  the  moon,  whence  the  name  that  the 
Greeks  gave  to  the  astral  plane — the  sublunar  world. 
In  fact,  so  nearly  does  the  limit  of  astral  matter 
coincide  with  that  orbit,  that  the  astral  envelopes  of 
the  moon  and  the  earth  usually  touch  one  another 
at  perigee,  but  not  at  apogee.  I  knew,  likewise,  of  a 
case  in  which  a  dead  man  reached  the  moon,  but 
could  not  then  return.  That  was  because  the  con- 
tinuity of  astral  matter  failed  him — the  tide  of 
space  had  flowed  in  between,  as  it  were,  and  he  had 
to  wait  until  communication  was  re-established  by 
the  approach  of  the  satellite  to  its  primary. 


HEAVEN-LIFE  CONDITIONS  37 


Heaven-life  Conditions 

The  principal  difficulty  in  understanding  the  con- 
ditions of  the  heaven-world  comes  from  our  in- 
veterate habit  of  thinking  of  the  personality  as  the 
man.  If  two  friends  are  bound  by  ties  of  affection, 
we  must  try  to  remember  that  the  bond  is  between 
the  souls  and  not  the  bodies — that  they  are  friends 
now  on  earth  because  in  quite  different  bodies  they 
have  known  and  loved  each  other  perhaps  for  thou- 
sands of  years.  That  fact  draws  their  physical 
bodies  together  on  this  plane,  but  it  does  not  enable 
them  to  understand  more  of  one  another  than  their 
physical  capabilities  permit;  and  further,  each 
wears  three  heavy  veils,  in  the  shape  of  the  mental, 
astral  and  physical  bodies,  to  conceal  his  real  self 
from  the  other. 

When  one  of  them  dies  he  passes  on  to  the  astral 
plane,  and  there  he  meets  his  living  friend  face  to 
face  during  the  sleep  of  the  latter.  Even  already 
he  can  see  somewhat  more  of  his  friend  than  before, 
because  for  each  of  them,  during  those  hours  of 
sleep,  the  heaviest  of  the  three  veils  has  been  with- 
drawn. The  dead  man  is  still  dealing  with  the  per- 
sonality of  his  friend  only,  and  therefore  if  some 
great  sorrow  should  fall  upon  the  waking  life  of 
that  friend,  it  would  inevitably  be  reflected  in  his 
astral  life,  and  the  dead  man  would  perceive  it. 
For  our  sleeping  and  waking  lives  are  in  reality  but 
one,  and  during  our  sleep  we  are  aware  of  that  fact, 
and  have  the  continuous  memory  of  both  open  be- 
fore   us.     Ycu   will   see,    therefore,    that   the    astral 


38  THE  INNER  LIFE 

body  of  his  living  friend  (with  which  the  dead  man 
is  dealing)  is  the  astral  body  of  the  personality,  and 
he  is  therefore  fully  conscious  of  what  is  happening 
to  that  personality. 

When  the  heaven-world  is  reached  all  this  is 
changed.  The  dead  man  is  then  functioning  in  his 
mental  body — the  same  mental  body  which  he  has  used 
during  his  past  earth-life;  but  he  does  not  meet  there 
the  mental  body  which  his  friend  is  using  during 
life.  On  the  contrary,  the  dead  man  himself  by  his 
thought  builds  for  his  friend  an  entirely  separate 
mental  body,  and  it  is  the  ego  of  his  friend  which 
ensouls  it,  working  from  its  own  level  and  from  the 
causal  body.  This  is  an  additional  opportunity  for 
mental-plane  activity  for  the  friend,  and  is  entirely 
separate  in  every  way  from  the  personality  of  his 
physical  life. 

It  is  not  possible  for  one  man  to  ensoul  more  than 
one  physical  body  at  one  time,  but  it  is  quite  possible 
for  him  to  ensoul  simultaneously  any  number  of  the 
thought-forms  which  other  people  may  make  of  him 
on  the  mental  plane  in  the  course  of  their  heaven- 
life.  I  think  it  is  a  misunderstanding  of  this  fact 
which  had  led  some  to  think  that  several  physical 
bodies  may  be  incarnations  of  one  man. 

You  will  see,  therefore,  that  any  sorrow  or  trouble 
which  may  fall  upon  the  personality  of  the  living 
man,  and  may  conceivably  influence  his  mental  body, 
will  not  in  the  least  affect  his  other  thought-form 
which  his  ego  is  using  as  an  additional  mental  body. 
If  in  that  manifestation  he  knows  at  all  of  such  sor- 
row or  trouble,  he  will  regard  it  as  he  would  from 
the  causal  body — that  is  to  say,  it  will  not  be  to  him 
a  sorrow  or  trouble  at  all,  but  only  a  lesson,  or  the 
working  out  of  some  karma.    There  is  no  delusion  at 


HEAVEN-LIFE  CONDITIONS  39 

all  in  this  view  of  his,  because  he  is  seeing  the  matter 
as  it  really  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  ego  on 
his  own  plane.  It  is  our  lower  personal  view  that  is 
the  delusion,  because  we  see  sorrow  and  trouble  where 
in  reality  there  are  only  the  steps  on  our  upward 
way. 

The  two  friends  may  know  far  more  of  each  other 
at  that  level,  because  each  has  now  only  one  veil, 
that  of  the  mental  body,  cast  over  his  indi- 
viduality ;  but  there  is  still  that  veil.  If  the  dead  man 
has  known  only  one  side  of  his  friend  during  life,  it 
will  be  only  through  that  side  that  the  friend  can  ex- 
press himself  in  the  heaven-world.  He  can  express 
that  side  of  himself  much  more  fully  and  satis- 
factorily than  ever  before;  but  he  is  largely  confined 
to  that  side.  Still,  it  is  a  fuller  expression  than  the 
dead  man  has  ever  been  able  to  see  upon  the  lower 
planes.  He  by  no  means  forgets  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  suffering,  because  he  remembers  clearly 
his  past  life;  but  he  understands  now  many  things 
that  were  not  clear  when  he  was  on  the  physical 
plane,  and  the  delight  of  the  present  is  for  him  so 
great  that  sorrow  seems  to  him  almost  like  a  dream. 

It  is  asked  how  we  who  still  live  on  earth  con- 
verse with  our  friends  in  heaven;  if  by  we  you 
mean  our  personality,  that  does  not  converse  with 
friends  in  heaven.  The  real  ego  does  do  so,  as  has 
been  said,  but  in  the  veil  of  this  personality  we 
know  nothing  of  that. 

Suppose  that  a  good  Catholic  mother  died,  who 
dearly  loved  her  daughter,  and  that  after  the  mother 
had  reached  the  heaven-world,  her  daughter  em- 
braced Theosophy.  The  mother  would  go  on  imagin- 
ing her  daughter  as  merely  orthodox;  would  she 
not  in  this  be  under  a  delusion?     Yes,  she  would, 


40  THE  INNER  LIFE 

for  this  is  an  instance  of  one  of  the  possible  limita- 
tions to  which  I  have  previously  referred.  If  the 
mother  could  see  only  such  of  her  daughter's  thought 
as  could  be  expressed  by  orthodox  ideas,  there  would 
naturally  be  points  in  the  new  revelation  which  had 
come  to  the  daughter  which  the  mother  would  be 
little  able  to  grasp.  But  in  so  far  as  the  ego  of  the 
daughter  profited  by  what  the  personality  had  learnt, 
there  would  be  a  tendency  on  her  part  gradually  to 
widen  out  and  perfect  the  conception  of  the  mother, 
but  always  along  the  lines  to  which  the  mother  was 
accustomed.  There  would  be  no  sense  of  difference 
of  opinion,  and  no  avoidance  of  subjects  of  religion. 

You  will  understand  that  I  am  speaking  here  of 
the  ordinary  person;  in  the  case  of  a  more  advanced 
man  who  was  already  fully  conscious  in  the  causal 
body,  he  would  put  himself  down  consciously  into 
the  thought-form  provided  for  him  by  a  friend  in 
the  heaven-world,  as  into  an  additional  mental 
body,  and  work  through  it  with  definite  intention; 
so  that  if  such  a  man  should  acquire  additional 
knowledge  he  could  directly  and  intentionally  com- 
municate it  to  that  friend.  In  this  way  the  Masters 
work  on  such  of  their  pupils  as  take  the  heaven- 
life,  and  alter  their  characters  immensely. 

A  man's  condition  in  the  heaven-life  depends  upon 
the  amount  of  spiritual  force  in  him.  Of  two  people 
of  the  same  class  or  type  the  more  spiritual  would 
naturally  remain  a  longer  time;  but  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  force  may  be  used  up  quickly 
or  slowly  according  to  the  necessities  of  each  man's 
evolution.  Those  who  have  devoted  themselves  es- 
pecially to  the  work  of  serving  the  Great  Ones,  and 
through  them  humanity,  are  likely  in  this  respect  to 
have  experiences  differing  somewhat  from  the  ordi- 


HEAVEN-LIFE  CONDITIONS  41 

nary.  It  is  evident  that  our  Masters  have  already, 
many  millennia  ago,  formed  a  special  band  of 
servers  and  helpers  from  those  who  have  offered 
themselves  for  such  work,  and  They  use  this  body 
of  men  as  a  kind  of  regiment  of  pioneers  to  be  sent 
wherever  special  work  of  that  kind  is  needed. 

Those  who  have  read  the  lives  of  Alcyone,  as  pub- 
lished in  The  Theosophist,  will  realise  that  the  hero 
of  that  remarkable  story  is  a  member  of  that  band 
— or  perhaps  we  should  rather  say  of  one  of  those 
bands;  and  for  that  reason  it  will  be  found  that 
over  and  over  again  the  same  set  of  people  come 
together  in  all  sorts  of  different  places,  in  their  suc- 
cessive incarnations.  It  is  obvious  that  in  a  group  of 
a  hundred  people  there  must  be  many  divergences; 
some  of  them  will  assuredly  generate  more  spiritual 
force  than  others,  and  their  karma  would  naturally 
be  such  as  to  take  them  into  differing  surroundings, 
yet  the  one  great  fact  that  they  are  devoted  to  service 
overpowers  all  these  considerations,  and  they  are 
brought  together  in  order  that  they  may  be  utilised  as 
a  whole. 

Be  sure  that  in  this  there  is  no  injustice,  and  that 
no  one  of  them,  for  this  or  any  other  reason,  es- 
capes one  jot  of  the  karma  which  is  legitimately  due 
to  him.  Indeed,  those  who  offer  themselves  for  ser- 
vice not  infrequently  suffer  considerably  in  the  course 
of  that  service — sometimes  because  it  is  necessary 
that  their  past  karma  should  be  cleared  up  quickly, 
in  order  that  they  may  be  free  to  do  higher  work  with- 
out any  hindrance  from  it,  and  in  other  cases  because 
their  work  may  have  made  it  impossible  for  them  to 
reap  life  after  life  the  karma  that  would  otherwise 
have  come  to  them,  and  so  a  considerable  accumula- 
tion may  descend  upon  them  at  once  in  some  gigan- 


42  THE  INNER  LIFE 

tic  catastrophe.  Instances  of  the  working  of  both 
these  methods  may  be  found  in  the  lives  of  Alcyone. 

In  the  case  of  the  great  bulk  of  humanity  there 
is  no  special  interference  from  without,  and  the 
heaven-life  of  each  works  itself  out  at  whatever  may  be 
its  ordinary  rate.  Naturally  this  difference  in  the 
time  of  working  out  involves  also  a  difference  of  in- 
tensity which  is  shown  by  a  greater  or  less  brilli- 
ancy in  the  light  of  the  mental  body.  The  more 
developed  man,  especially  if  he  has  before  him  the 
idea  of  service,  usually  generates  karma  during  his 
heaven-life,  and  thus  he  may  modify  it  even  while  it 
is  in  progress. 

It  is  true  that  Madame  Blavatsky  states  in  The  Key 
to  Theosophy  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  materialist  to 
have  any  heaven-life,  as  he  had  not  while  on  earth 
believed  in  any  such  condition;  but  it  seems  probable 
that  she  was  employing  the  word  materialist  in  a 
more  restricted  sense  than  that  in  which  it  is  gener- 
ally used,  for  in  the  same  volume  she  also  asserts 
that  for  them  no  conscious  life  after  death  is  possible 
at  all,  whereas  it  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge 
among  those  whose  nightly  work  lies  upon  the  astral 
plane  that  many  of  those  whom  we  usually  call 
materialists  are  to  be  met  with  there,  and  are  cer- 
tainly not  unconscious. 

For  example,  a  prominent  materialist  intimately 
known  to  one  of  our  members  was  not  long  ago  dis- 
covered by  his  friend  in  the  highest  subdivision  of 
the  astral  world,  where  he  had  surrounded  himself 
with  his  books  and  was  continuing  his  studies  almost 
as  he  might  have  done  on  earth.  On  being  ques- 
tioned by  his  friend  he  readily  admitted  that  the 
theories  which  he  had  held  while  on  earth  were  con- 
futed by  the  irresistible  logic  of  facts,  but  his  own 


KARMA  IN  THE  HEAVEN  LIFE  43 

agnostic  tendencies  were  still  strong  enough  to  make 
him  unwilling  to  accept  what  his  friend  told  him  as 
to  the  existence  of  the  still  higher  spiritual  state 
of  the  heaven-world.  Yet  there  was  certainly  much  in 
this  man's  character  which  could  find  its  full  result 
only  in  the  heaven-world,  and  since  his  entire  disbelief 
in  any  life  after  death  has  not  prevented  his  astral 
experience,  there  seems  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it 
can  check  the  due  working  out  of  the  higher  forces 
in  him  upon  the  mental  plane. 

We  constantly  find  down  here  that  nature  makes 
no  allowance  for  our  ignorance  of  her  laws;  if,  under 
an  impression  that  fire  does  not  burn,  a  man  puts 
his  hand  into  a  flame,  he  is  speedily  convinced  of 
his  error.  In  the  same  way  a  man's  disbelief  in  a 
future  existence  does  not  affect  the  facts  of 
nature,  and  in  some  cases  at  least  he  simply  finds 
out  after  death  that  he  was  under  a  mistake.  The 
kind  of  materialism  referred  to  by  Madame  Blavatsky 
was  probably  something  much  coarser  and  more 
aggressive  than  ordinary  agnosticism — something 
which  would  render  it  exceedingly  unlikely  that  a 
man  who  held  it  would  have  any  qualities  requiring  a 
heaven-life  in  which  to  work  themselves  out;  but  no 
such  case  as  that  has  yet  come  under  our  observa- 
tion. 


Karma  in  the  Heaven  Life 

In  the  earlier  days  of  our  study  of  Theosophy  we 
were  led  to  look  upon  all  other  worlds  but  the  physi- 
cal as  almost  exclusively  the  theatre  of  results  and 


44  THE  INNER  LIFE 

not  of  causes.  It  was  supposed  that  man  spent  his 
physical  life  to  a  large  extent  in  generating  karma, 
and  his  existence  on  the  astral  and  mental  planes  in 
working  it  out,  and  the  suggestion  that  a  man  could 
by  any  means  make  any  more  karma,  even  on  the 
astral  plane,  was  regarded  as  almost  heretical. 

As  the  years  rolled  on  and  some  of  us  became  able 
to  study  astral  conditions  at  first-hand,  it  became  ob- 
vious that  this  idea  had  been  an  error,  since  it  was 
manifestly  possible  for  us  in  working  on  that  plane  to 
performs  actions  of  various  sorts  which  produced  far- 
reaching  results.  We  soon  saw  also  that  not  only  the 
man  still  attached  to  a  physical  body  could  produce 
these  results,  but  that  they  were  equally  within  the 
power  of  one  who  had  cast  off  that  vehicle.  We  found 
that  any  developed  man  is  in  every  way  quite  as 
active  during  his  astral  life  after  physical  death  as 
during  his  physical  life  before  it;  that  he  can  un- 
questionably help  or  hinder  not  only  his  own  progress 
but  that  of  others  quite  as  much  after  death  as  be- 
fore, and  consequently  that  he  is  all  the  time  gen- 
erating karma  of  the  greatest  importance. 

This  modified  view  of  after-death  conditions  gradu- 
ally found  its  way  into  our  literature,  and  may  be 
considered  now  as  universally  accepted  by  all  Theoso- 
phists.  But  for  many  years  after  we  had  corrected 
our  misconceptions  upon  this  important  point,  we 
still  held  to  the  idea  that  in  the  heaven-world  at 
least  man  could  do  practically  nothing  but  enjoy  the 
conditions  which  he  had  made  for  himself  during 
the  previous  stages  of  his  existence.  Broadly  speak- 
ing, this  is  true  for  the  ordinary  man,  though  we 
do  not  always  realize  that  even  in  the  course  of  that 
enjoyment  the  inhabitant  of  the  heaven- word  is 
affecting  others,  and  therefore  producing  results. 


KARMA  IN  THE  HEAVEN  LIFE  45 

One  who  has  succeeded  in  raising  his  consciousness 
to  the  level  of  the  causal  body  has  already  unified  the 
higher  and  lower  selves  (to  use  the  older  termino- 
logy), and  to  him  the  statements  made  as  to  average 
humanity  naturally  do  not  apply.  Such  an  one  has 
the  consciousness  of  the  ego  at  his  disposal  during 
the  whole  of  his  physical  life,  and  that  is  not  at  all 
affected  by  the  death  of  the  physical  body,  nor  even 
by  the  second  and  third  deaths  in  which  he  leaves 
behind  him  the  astral  and  the  mental  bodies  respect- 
ively. For  him  the  whole  of  that  series  of  incarna- 
tions is  only  one  long  life,  and  what  we  call  an 
incarnation  is  to  him  a  day  in  that  life.  All  through 
his  human  evolution  his  consciousness  is  fully  active, 
and  it  naturally  follows  that  he  is  making  karma 
just  as  much  at  one  period  of  it  as  at  another;  and 
while  his  condition  at  any  one  moment  is  the  result 
of  the  causes  which  he  has  set  in  motion  in  the  past, 
there  is  no  instant  at  which  he  is  not  modifying  his 
conditions  by  the  exercise  of  thought  and  will. 

Men  who  have  reached  that  level  are  at  present 
rare ;  but  there  are  others  who  possess  a  similar  power 
in  a  minor  degree.  Every  human  being,  after  he  has 
passed  through  his  life  on  the  astral  and  lower  mental 
planes,  has  a  momentary  flash  of  the  consciousness 
of  the  ego,  in  which  he  sees  his  last  life  as  a  whole, 
and  gathers  from  it  the  impression  of  success  or 
failure  in  the  work  which  it  was  meant  to  do;  and 
along  with  this  he  has  also  a  forecast  of  the  life 
before  him,  with  the  knowledge  of  the  general  lesson 
which  that  is  to  teach,  or  the  specific  progress 
which  he  is  intended  to  make  in  it.  Only  very  slowly 
does  the  ego  awaken  to  the  value  of  these  glimpses,  but 
when  he  comes  to  understand  them  he  naturally  be- 
gins to  make  use  of  them. 


46  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Thus  by  imperceptible  degrees  he  arrives  at  a  stage 
in  his  evolution  when  this  glimpse  is  no  longer  mo- 
mentary— when  he  is  able  to  consider  the  question 
much  more  fully,  and  to  devote  some  time  to  his  plans 
for  the  life  which  lies  before  him.  His  consciousness 
gradually  increases,  and  he  comes  to  have  an  appreci- 
able life  on  the  higher  levels  of  the  mental  plane  each 
time  that  he  touches  them.  When  he  arrives  at  this 
stage  he  soon  finds  that  he  is  one  among  a  vast 
number  of  other  egos,  and  that  he  can  do  something 
else  with  his  life  among  them  besides  making  plans 
for  his  own  future.  He  may  and  does  live  a  con- 
scious life  among  his  peers,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  influences  them  in  many  ways,  and  is  himself  in- 
fluenced in  turn.  Here  therefore  is  a  possibility  of 
making  karma,  and  of  making  it  on  a  scale  which  is 
entirely  out  of  his  reach  on  these  lower  planes,  for 
every  thought  on  those  higher  mental  levels  has  a 
force  quite  out  of  proportion  to  that  of  our  limited 
thought  during  physical  life. 

This  of  which  I  am  speaking  is  quite  distinct  from 
the  consciousness  which  comes  with  the  unifying  of 
the  higher  and  lower  selves.  When  that  feat  has  been 
performed  the  man's  consciousness  resides  in  the  ego 
all  the  time,  and  from  that  ego  it  plays  through 
whatever  vehicle  he  may  happen  to  be  using.  But  in 
the  case  of  a  man  who  has  not  yet  achieved  that 
union  the  consciousness  of  the  ego  on  his  own  plane 
comes  into  activity  only  when  he  is  no  longer  ham- 
pered by  any  lower  vehicles,  and  exists  only  until  he 
puts  himself  down  again  into  incarnation ;  for  as  soon 
as  he  takes  up  a  lower  body  his  consciousness  can 
manifest  for  the  time  only  through  that  body. 

Short  of  that  perfect  consciousness  of  the  ego, 
there  are  stages  of  development  which  it  is  necessary 


KARMA  IN  THE  HEAVEN  LIFE  47 

to  note.  The  ordinary  'man  in  the  street'  has  usu- 
ally no  definite  and  reliable  consciousness  outside  of 
the  physical  plane.  His  astral  body  may  be  fully  de- 
veloped and  quite  capable  of  being  used  as  a  vehicle 
in  any  and  every  way;  yet  he  is  probably  not  in 
the  habit  of  so  using  it,  and  therefore  his  experi- 
ences of  the  astral  world  are  of  a  vague  and  uncer- 
tain character.  He  may  sometimes  remember  one  of 
them  vividly,  but  on  the  whole  the  time  of  the  sleep 
of  the  physical  body  is  for  him  a  blank. 

The  next  stage  beyond  this  is  that  of  the  gradual 
development  of  the  habit  of  using  the  astral  body, 
accompanied  as  time  goes  on  by  some  recollection  of 
what  is  done  in  it.  The  end  of  this  is  the  open- 
ing of  the  astral  consciousness,  though  usually  that 
comes  only  as  the  result  of  definite  efforts  along  the 
line  of  meditation.  When  this  opening  is  attained  the 
man's  consciousness  is  continuous  through  night  and 
day,  and  up  to  the  end  of  the  astral  life,  so  that  he 
avoids  the  usual  temporary  suspension  of  conscious- 
ness at  the  death  of  the  physical  body. 

The  next  stage  beyond  this — a  long  stage  usually — 
is  the  development  of  the  consciousness  of  the  mental 
body,  and  when  that  is  achieved,  each  personality  re- 
mains conscious  from  physical  birth  until  the  end  of 
its  life  in  the  heaven-world.  But  even  then  it  is 
only  the  consciousness  of  the  personality,  and  not  yet 
of  the  ego,  and  still  another  step  must  be  taken  be- 
fore complete  unification  is  attained. 

It  is  clear  that  men  who  have  reached  any  of 
these  stages  are  making  karma  as  far  as  their  con- 
sciousness reaches;  but  what  as  to  the  ordinary  man, 
who  has  not  yet  quite  succeeded  in  linking  even  the 
astral  consciousness  to  the  physical?  In  so  far  as  he 
has  any  activities  on  the  astral  plane  during  sleep,  he 


43  THE  INNER  LIFE 

must  be  producing  results.  If  he  feels,  even  blindly, 
love  and  affection  towards  certain  persons,  and  goes 
out  towards  them  during  sleep  with  vague  thoughts  of 
good-will,  he  must  inevitably  affect  them  to  a  certain 
extent,  and  the  effect  must  be  a  good  one.  Therefore 
there  is  no  possibility  of  avoiding  a  reaction  upon 
himself  which  will  also  be  good.  The  same  is  true 
if  the  feeling  unfortunately  be  one  of  dislike  or  of 
active  hatred,  and  the  result  for  him  in  that  case  can- 
not but  be  painful. 

When,  after  death,  he  lives  entirely  in  the  astral 
world,  his  consciousness  is  usually  much  more  definite 
than  it  has  been  during  the  sleep  of  his  physical 
body,  and  he  is  correspondingly  better  able  to  think 
and  act  with  determination  in  regard  to  other  men, 
and  so  his  opportunities  of  making  good  or  bad  karma 
are  the  greater.  But  when  such  a  man  ends  his 
astral  life  and  passes  into  the  heaven-world  he  reaches 
a  condition  where  activity  is  no  longer  possible  for 
him.  He  has  encouraged  activities  in  his  mental 
body,  during  life,  in  certain  directions  only,  and  now 
that  he  comes  to  live  entirely  in  that  mental  body  he 
finds  himself  enclosed  within  it  as  in  a  tower,  shut 
off  from  the  world  around  him  and  able  to  look  out 
upon  it  only  through  the  windows  in  it  which  he 
has  opened  by  means  of  those  activities. 

Through  those  windows  the  mighty  forces  of  the 
plane  play  upon  him;  he  responds  to  them  and  leads 
a  life  of  vivid  joy — which  is,  however,  confined  to 
those  particular  lines.  But,  though  he  is  thus  shut 
away  from  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  possibilities  of 
the  mental  world,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  he  is 
in  the  slightest  degree  conscious  of  any  curtailment  of 
his  activities  or  his  feelings.  He  is,  on  the  contrary, 
filled  with  bliss  to  the  very  utmost  of  which  he  is 


KARMA  IN  THE  HEAVEN  LIFE  49 

capable,  and  it  is  to  him  incredible  that  there  can 
be  any  greater  joy  than  that  which  he  is  himself 
experiencing.  True,  he  has  shut  himself  in  within 
certain  limits;  Irut  he  is  quite  unconscious  of  those 
limits,  and  he  has  all  that  he  can  possibly  desire  or 
think  of  within  them.  He  has  surrounded  himself 
with  images  of  his  friends,  so  that  through  these 
images  he  is  actually  in  closer  connection  with  them 
than  he  has  ever  been  on  any  other  plane. 

Let  us  see  then  what  are  his  possibilities  for  mak- 
ing karma  in  this  curiously  limited  life — limited,  we 
must  remember,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  men- 
tal world  only,  for  along  the  lines  of  its  special  direc- 
tions its  possibilities  are  far  greater  than  those  of 
physical  life.  A  man  under  such  conditions  cannot 
originate  a  fresh  line  of  affection  or  devotion,  but  his 
affection  and  devotion  along  the  lines  which  he  has 
already  decided  will  be  distinctly  much  more  powerful 
than  they  ever  could  have  been  while  he  was  labour- 
ing under  the  heavy  limitations  of  the  physical  body. 

An  ordinary  man  such  as  we  have  described  is, 
quite  unintentionally  and  unconsciously  to  himself, 
producing  three  separate  results,  during  the  whole  of 
his  heaven-life.  Let  us  take  as  an  example  the  emo- 
tion of  affection.  He  feels  this  strongly  for  certain 
friends,  and  it  is  probable  that  even  after  his  death 
those  friends  still  think  of  him  with  kindly  remem- 
brance, and  thus  his  memory  is  not  without  its  effect 
even  upon  their  personalities.  But  entirely  apart  from 
this  is  the  effect  to  which  I  have  above  referred — 
that  he  makes  an  image  of  each  friend  and,  in 
so  doing,  draws  forth  a  strong  response  from  the  ego 
of  that  friend.  The  affection  which  he  pours  upon 
that  ego  (manifesting  through  the  thought-form  which 
he  has  made  for  it)    is   a  mighty  power  for  good, 


50  THE  INNER  LIFE 

which  bears  no  inconsiderable  part  in  the  evolution 
of  that  ego.  It  evokes  from  him  an  amount  of  affec- 
tion which  would  not  otherwise  be  stirred  up  in  him; 
and  the  steady  intensification  of  that  most  admirable 
quality  throughout  the  centuries  of  the  heaven-life 
raises  the  friend  considerably  in  the  scale  of  evolu- 
tion. To  do  this  for  another  ego  is  unquestionably 
an  act  which  generates  karma,  even  though  the  man 
who  has  set  all  this  machinery  in  motion  has  done 
30  uncomprehendingly. 

Occasionally  the  action  of  such  a  force  upon  the 
ego  of  a  surviving  friend  may  manifest  itself  even  in 
the  personality  of  that  friend  upon  the  physical  plane. 
The  action  is  upon  the  ego  through  the  special 
thought-form;  but  the  personality  of  the  surviving 
friend  in  this  world  is  a  manifestation  of  the  same 
ego,  and  if  the  ego  be  considerably  modified  it  is  at 
least  possible  that  that  modification  may  show  itself 
in  the  physical  manifestation  on  this  lower  plane.  It 
may  be  asked  why  the  thought  of  the  man  in  the 
heaven-world  should  not  act  upon  his  friend  precisely 
as  does  the  thought  of  a  living  man — why  the  vibra- 
tions sent  forth  from  his  mental  body  cannot  strike 
directly  upon  the  mental  body  of  his  friend,  and  why 
it  should  not  generate  a  thought-form  which  would 
travel  through  space  and  attach  itself  to  his  friend 
in  the  ordinary  way.  If  he  were  moving  freely  and 
consciously  about  the  mental  plane  that  is  precisely 
what  would  happen,  but  the  reason  that  it  does  not 
lies  in  the  peculiar  condition  of  the  man  in  the  heaven- 
world. 

The  man  in  the  heaven-life  has  shut  himself  out  abso- 
lutely from  the  rest  of  the  world — from  the  mental 
plane  as  much  as  from  the  lower  levels,  and  he  is 
living  inside  the  shell  of  his  own  thoughts.     If  his 


KARMA  IN  THE  HEAVEN  LIFE  51 

thoughts  could  reach  us  in  the  ordinary  way,  ours 
could  reach  him  in  precisely  the  same  way,  but  we 
know  that  that  is  not  so.  The  thought-form  which 
he  makes  of  his  friend  is  within  his  own  shell,  and 
therefore  he  can  act  upon  it;  and,  since  the  ego 
of  the  friend  has  poured  himself  down  into  that 
thought-form,  the  force  reaches  the  ego  of  the  friend 
in  that  way,  and  from  that  ego  it  may,  as  we  have 
said,  to  some  extent  manifest  itself  even  in  the  person- 
ality of  the  friend  down  here.  The  shell  is  as  re- 
gards the  mental  plane  much  like  the  shell  of  an  egg 
on  the  physical  plane.  The  only  way  to  get  any- 
thing into  the  shell  of  an  egg,  without  breaking  it, 
would  be  to  pour  it  in  from  the  fourth  dimension,  or 
to  find  a  force  whose  vibrations  are  sufficiently  fine 
to  penetrate  between  the  particles  of  the  shell  with- 
out disturbing  them.  This  is  true  also  of  this 
mental  shell;  it  cannot  be  penetrated  by  any  vibra- 
tions of  matter  of  its  own  level,  but  the  finer  vibra- 
tions which  belong  to  the  ego  can  pass  through  it 
without  disturbing  it  in  the  least;  so  that  it  can  be 
acted  upon  freely  from  above,  but  not  from  below. 

The  thought-form  made  by  the  dead  man  may  be 
considered  as  a  kind  of  additional  artificial  mental 
body,  made  for  and  presented  to  the  friend  upon 
whom  the  love  is  being  poured  forth.  The  person- 
ality down  here  knows  nothing  of  this,  but  the  ego 
is  fully  conscious  of  it  and  plunges  down  into  it  with 
delight  and  avidity,  realising  incidentally  that  this 
affords  him  an  additional  opportunity  of  manifesta- 
tion, and  therefore  of  evolution.  From  this  it  follows 
that  the  man  who  has  made  himself  generally  be- 
loved— the  man  who  has  many  real  friends — will 
evolve  with  far  greater  rapidity  than  a  more  ordi- 
nary man;  and  this  again  is  obviously  the  karma  of 


52  THE  INNER  LIFE 

his  development  within  himself  of  the  qualities  which 
make  him  so  lovable. 

So  much  for  the  direct  result  of  his  action  upon 
individuals;  but  there  are  also  two  aspects  of  its  gen- 
eral action  which  must  not  be  ignored.  A  man  who 
thus  pours  out  a  great  flood  of  affection,  and 
evokes  in  response  other  floods  from  his  friends,  is 
distinctly  improving  the  mental  atmosphere  in  his 
neighborhood.  It  is  good  for  the  world  and  for  the 
humanity  evolving  in  it  that  its  mental  atmosphere 
should  thus  be  charged  with  such  feelings,  for  they 
play  upon  all  its  inhabitants — devas,  men,  animals, 
plants — and  on  every  one  of  these  widely  different 
forms  of  life  they  have  their  influence,  and  always 
an  influence  for  good. 

The  second  and  more  important  of  the  results  pro- 
duced for  the  world  at  large  will  be  readily  com- 
prehensible to  those  who  have  studied  the  book  on 
Thought-forms,  as  an  attempt  is  there  made  to  indi- 
cate the  outpouring  which  flows  down  from  the  LOGOS 
in  response  to  a  thought  of  unselfish  devotion.  It 
has  often  been  explained  that  such  response  comes 
not  only  to  the  individual  who  originated  the  thought, 
but  that  it  also  helps  to  fill  the  reservoir  of  spiritual 
force,  which  is  held  by  the  Nirmanakaya  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  Masters  of  Wisdom  and  their  pupils,  to 
be  used  for  the  helping  of  mankind.  What  is  true 
of  devotion  is  true  also  of  unselfish  affection,  and  if 
every  outrush  of  such  affection  or  devotion  during 
the  comparatively  limited  physical  life  produces  so 
magnificent  a  result,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  a  far 
stronger  outrush,  sustained  through  a  period  of  per- 
haps a  thousand  years,  will  make  to  that  reservoir 
a  really  considerable  contribution,  and  this  will 
bring  to  the  world  a  benefit  which  is  not  calculable 


KARMA  IN  THE  HEAVEN  LIFE  53 

in  any  terms  that  we  can  use  upon  the  physical  plane. 
So  it  is  clear  that  while  a  man's  power  for  good 
augments  as  his  consciousness  in  these  higher  worlds 
increases,  even  the  quite  ordinary  man,  who  has  as 
yet  no  special  development  of  consciousness,  is 
nevertheless  capable  of  doing  an  enormous  amount  of 
good  during  his  sojourn  upon  the  higher  planes. 
During  his  long  stay  in  the  heaven-world  he  may 
benefit  his  fellow-men,  and  so  make  a  large  amount 
of  good  karma  for  himself;  but,  in  order  to  do  that, 
he  must  be  a  man  of  unselfish  love  or  unselfish  de- 
votion. It  is  this  quality  of  unselfishness,  of  self- 
forgetfulness,  which  puts  the  power  into  his  hands; 
and  that,  therefore,  is  the  virtue  which  every  man 
must  cultivate  now  in  full  consciousness,  in  order 
that  after  death  he  may  use  to  the  best  advantage 
those  far  longer  periods  whose  conditions  it  is  now 
so  impossible  for  him  to  realize. 


J^eccmh  J^ecium 


^strai  Pork 


SECOND  SECTION 


Invisible  Helpers 

EOPLE  often  write  to  us,  applying  to  be 
admitted  to  the  band  of  invisible  help- 
ers, and  asking  what  preparation  is  neces- 
sary- Those  who  desire  to  take  up  this 
work  should  familiarise  themselves  thor- 
oughly with  the  book  written  under  that  title, 
and  should  especially  take  care  to  develope  within 
themselves  the  qualifications  which  are  there  de- 
scribed. I  have  little  to  add  to  what  I  have  there 
written,  except  that  I  should  advise  every  one  who 
wishes  to  take  up  work  on  the  astral  plane  to  learn 
as  much  as  he  can  beforehand  of  the  conditions  of 
life  on  that  plane. 

In  the  astral  life  we  are  absolutely  the  same  per- 
sons as  we  are  down  here,  but  with  certain  limita- 
tions removed.  Our  interests  and  activities  on  that 
plane  resemble  those  on  the  physical;  a  student  is 
still  studious;  an  idle  person  is  still  idle;  an  active 
helper  on  the  physical  plane  is  still  a  helper  there. 
Some  people  still  gossip  there  just  as  venomously 
as  ever,  and  are  still  continuing  to  make  just  the 
same  bad  karma  by  doing  so.  Most  dead  people 
haunt  for  a  long  time  the  places  to  which  they  have 
been  accustomed  in  life.  Many  a  man  hovers  round 
his  ancestral  home,  and  continues  daily  to  visit  the 


58  THE  INNER  LIFE 

astral  counterpart  of  the  temple  which  he  used  to 
support.  Others  drift  round  and  make  pilgrimages, 
without  trouble  or  expense,  to  all  the  great  shrines 
which  during  life  they  have  in  vain  wished  to  visit. 

There  is  perfect  continuity  in  the  astral  life.  That 
life  is  in  many  ways  much  more  real  than  this,  or  at 
least  much  nearer  to  reality,  and  this  physical  exist- 
ence is  only  a  series  of  breaks  in  it  during  which  our 
activity  is  greatly  limited  and  our  consciousness  but 
partially  operative.  To  most  of  us  in  this  lower 
life  the  night  seems  a  blank,  and  in  the  morning  we 
remember  nothing  of  what  we  have  done;  but  we 
must  not  therefore  suppose  that  we  are  equally  dense 
on  the  astral  plane.  That  wider  consciousness  fully 
includes  this,  and  every  night  we  remember  vividly 
not  only  what  we  did  on  all  previous  nights,  but 
also  all  that  we  have  done  on  the  intermediate  days. 
It  is  the  physical  brain  which  is  dull  and  clogged,  and 
it  is  upon  return  to  it  that  we  lose  our  memory  of 
all  except  that  with  which  it  has  been  directly  con- 
cerned. The  astral  life  is  much  more  vivid  and  its 
emotions  are  far  stronger  than  any  that  we  know 
down  here.  What  we  ordinarily  call  an  emotion  is 
only  the  comparatively  small  fragment  of  one  which 
remains  after  the  greater  part  of  it  has  been  ex- 
hausted in  setting  in  motion  the  clumsy  physical  par- 
ticles, so  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  far  more  in- 
tense and  real  that  other  life  must  be. 

And  yet,  although  this  is  quite  true,  and  true  cf 
everybody,  ordinary  people  usually  do  very  little  in 
the  way  of  real  work  on  the  astral  plane.  They  do 
not  know,  in  fact,  that  they  can  work,  and  even  if 
they  did  know  they  would  probably  see  no  particu- 
lar reason  why  they  should.  A  man  may  spend  a 
very  enjoyable  time  in  the  astral  world,  just  drifting 


INVISIBLE  HELPERS  59 

about  and  experiencing  various  pleasurable  emotions. 
That  seems  to  most  people  the  only  thing  to  do,  and 
it  needs  a  powerful  motive  to  rouse  them  out  of  that, 
and  make  them  take  the  trouble  of  devoting  their 
time  to  the  helping  of  others.  We  must  admit  that 
for  the  ordinary  man  this  motive  does  not  exist; 
but  when  we  have  begun  to  study  Theosophy,  and 
in  that  way  learn  the  course  of  evolution  and  the 
purpose  of  things,  there  arises  within  us  an  earnest 
desire  to  help  forward  that  evolution,  to  accomplish 
that  purpose,  and  to  put  our  fellow-men  in  the  way 
of  understanding  it  also,  in  order  that  thereby  their 
troubles  may  be  lightened  arid  the  path  of  their 
progress  made  easier. 

Now,  when  a  man  thus  awakens  to  his  duty,  how 
is  he  to  set  about  it?  We  are  all  of  us  capable  of 
such  work,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  though 
probably  not  in  the  habit  of  doing  it.  All  people  of 
ordinary  culture  and  development  have  their  astral 
bodies  in  working  order,  just  as  all  reasonably 
healthy  people  possess  the  necessary  muscles  and  the 
necessary  strength  in  them  to  enable  them  to  swim; 
but  if  they  have  not  learnt  how  to  use  them  they  will 
need  a  certain  amount  of  instruction  before  they 
can  usefully  or  even  safely  take  to  the  water.  The 
difficulty  with  the  ordinary  person  is  not  that  the 
astral  body  cannot  act,  but  that  for  thousands  of 
years  that  body  has  been  accustomed  to  being  set  in 
motion  only  by  impressions  received  from  below 
through  the  physical  vehicle,  so  that  men  do  not 
realise  that  the  astral  body  can  work  on  its  own 
plane  and  on  its  own  account,  and  that  the  will  can 
act  upon  it  directly.  People  remain  'unawake' 
astrally  because  they  get  into  the  habit  of  waiting 
for  the  familiar  physical  vibrations  to  call  out  their 
astral  activity. 


60  THE  INNER  LIFE 

There  are  several  ways  in  which  a  man  may  be- 
gin to  help.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  a  relation  or 
friend  dies.  In  order  to  reach  and  to  help  him  dur- 
ing sleep,  all  that  is  necessary  is  to  think  of  him 
before  retiring  to  rest,  with  the  resolve  to  give  him 
whatever  assistance  he  most  needs.  We  do  not  need 
any  help  in  order  to  find  him,  or  to  communicate 
with  him.  We  must  try  to  understand  that  as  soon 
as  we  leave  the  physical  body  at  night  we  stand  side 
by  side  with  a  departed  friend,  exactly  as  we  did 
when  he  was  with  us  on  the  physical  plane.  One 
great  thing  to  remember  is  the  necessity  of  curbing 
all  sorrow  for  the  so-called  dead,  because  it  cannot 
but  react  upon  him. 

If  a  man  allows  himself  to  despair  about  the  dead, 
the  feeling  of  despair  will  affect  them  very  strongly, 
for  emotions  play  through  the  astral  body,  and  con- 
sequently those  who  are  living  in  their  astral  vehicles 
are  much  more  readily  and  deeply  influenced  by 
them  than  people  who  have  a  physical  body  to  deaden 
their  perceptions.  The  dead  can  see  us,  but  it  is  our 
astral  body  that  they  see;  consequently  they  are  at 
once  aware  of  our  emotions,  but  not  necessarily  of 
the  details  of  our  physical  condition.  They  know 
whether  we  are  happy  or  miserable,  but  not  what 
book  we  are  reading,  for  example.  The  emotion  is 
obvious  to  them,  but  not  necessarily  the  thought 
which  causes  it.  The  dead  man  carries  on  with  him 
his  affections  and  hatreds;  he  knows  his  old  friends 
when  he  meets  them,  and  he  also  often  forms  new 
friendships  among  new  companions  whom  he  meets 
for  the  first  time  on  the  astral  plane. 

Not  only  must  we  avoid  sorrow,  but  also  excite- 
ment of  any  kind.  The  invisible  helper  must  above 
all   things   keep   perfectly   calm.     I   have  known   a 


INVISIBLE   HELPERS  61 

worthy  lady  who  was  full  of  the  most  earnest  desire 
to  help,  and  in  her  eagerness  to  do  so  keyed  herself 
up  into  a  tremendous  state  of  excitement.  Now,  ex- 
citement shows  itself  in  the  astral  body  in  great  in- 
crease of  size,  violent  vibration  and  the  flashing 
forth  of  fiery  colours.  So  the  newly-dead  person, 
who  was  quite  unused  to  astral  surroundings,  and 
consequently  in  a  state  of  timidity  and  nervousness, 
was  horrified  to  see  a  huge  flaming,  flashing  sphere 
come  rushing  at  him  with  evident  intention.  Natur- 
ally he  took  this  for  the  theological  devil  in  propria 
persona,  and  fled  shrieking  before  it  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  though  for  a  long  time  it  increased  his 
terror  by  persistently  following  him. 

One  case  in  which  it  is  often  possible  for  even  a 
beginner  to  make  himself  useful  is  that  of  some 
friend  or  neighbour  who  is  known  to  be  about  to  die. 
If  one  has  access  to  him  physically,  and  if  his  illness 
is  of  a  nature  which  makes  it  possible  to  discuss  with 
him  the  conditions  of  death  and  of  its  after-states, 
a  little  rational  explanation  of  these  will  often  very 
greatly  relieve  his  mind  and  lighten  his  burdens. 
Indeed,  the  mere  meeting  with  a  person  who  speaks 
confidently  and  cheerfully  about  the  life  beyond  the 
grave  is  frequently  the  greatest  consolation  to  one 
who  finds  himself  approaching  it. 

If,  however,  for  any  reason,  this  physical  com- 
munication is  impossible,  much  may  be  done  during 
sleep  by  acting  upon  the  dying  man  from  the  astral 
plane.  An  untrained  person  seeking  to  give  such 
help  should  follow  the  rules  laid  down  in  our  books; 
he  should  fix  the  intention  of  aiding  that  particular 
person  in  his  mind  before  going  to  sleep,  and  he 
should  even  decide  as  far  as  possible  upon  the  argu- 
ments which  should  be  presented  and  even  the  very 


62  THE  INNER  LIFE 

words  which  should  be  used,  for  the  more  precise 
and  definite  the  resolution  is  made  while  awake,  the 
more  certain  it  is  to  be  faithfully  and  accurately 
carried  out  in  the  astral  body  during  sleep. 

The  explanation  to  be  given  to  the  sick  man  is 
necessarily  the  same  in  both  cases.  The  main  object 
of  the  helper  is  to  calm  and  encourage  the  sufferer, 
to  induce  him  to  realise  that  death  is  a  perfectly 
natural  and  usually  an  easy  process,  and  in  no  case 
a  formidable  or  terrible  leap  into  an  unknown  abyss. 
The  nature  of  the  astral  world,  the  way  in  which  a 
man  ought  to  order  his  life  in  it  if  he  wishes  to 
make  the  best  of  it,  and  the  preparation  necessary 
for  progress  toward  the  heaven-world  which  lies  be- 
yond; all  these  should  be  gradually  explained  by  the 
helper  to  the  dying  man.  The  helper  should  always 
remember  that  his  own  attitude  and  state  of  mind 
produces  even  more  effect  than  his  argument  or  his 
advice,  and  consequently  he  must  be  exceedingly  care- 
ful to  approach  his  task  with  the  greatest  calmness 
and  confidence.  If  the  helper  himself  is  in  a  con- 
dition of  nervous  excitement  he  is  quite  likely  to  do 
more  harm  than  good,  as  did  the  poor  lady  whom  I 
have  just  mentioned. 

The  assistance  offered  should  be  continued  after 
death.  There  will  be  a  certain  period  of  uncon- 
sciousness then,  but  it  may  last  only  for  a  moment, 
though  often  the  moment  expands  into  a  few  minutes, 
or  several  hours,  and  sometimes  even  into  many  days 
or  weeks.  A  trained  pupil  naturally  observes  for  him- 
self the  condition  of  the  'dead'  man's  conscious- 
ness and  regulates  his  assistance  accordingly;  the 
untrained  man  will  do  well  to  offer  such  assistance 
immediately  after  death,  and  also  to  hold  himself  in 
readiness  to  give  it  for  several  succeeding  nights,  in 


INVISIBLE  HELPERS  63 

order  that  he  may  not  fail  to  be  at  hand  when  his 
services  are  needed.  So  many  diverse  circumstances 
affect  the  duration  of  this  period  of  unconscious- 
ness that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  lay  down  any 
general  rule  in  the  matter. 

We  should  at  least  determine  each  night  to  com- 
fort someone  who  is  in  trouble,  and  if  we  know  the 
exact  nature  of  the  trouble  we  must  do  our  best  to 
adapt  our  measures  to  the  needs  of  the  case.  If  the 
sufferer  be  weak  and  exhausted,  the  helper  should 
use  his  will  to  pour  into  him  physical  strength.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  is  excited  or  hysterical,  the 
helper  should  endeavour  to  enfold  him  in  a  special 
aura  of  calm  and  gentleness — wrap  him  up,  as  it  were 
in  a  strong  thought-form  of  peace  and  harmony, 
just  as  one  would  wrap  up  a  person  in  a  blanket. 

It  is  often  difficult  for  one  who  tries  to  help  to 
believe  that  he  can  have  been  successful,  when  he 
wakes  in  the  morning  and  remembers  nothing  what- 
ever of  what  has  taken  place.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
some  measure  of  success  is  absolutely  certain,  and 
as  the  helper  goes  on  with  his  work  he  will  often 
receive  cheering  little  indications  that  he  is  pro- 
ducing  definite  results  in  spite  of  his  lack  of  memory. 

Many  a  member  has  set  himself  to  try  this,  and 
for  a  long  time  has  known  nothing  as  to  results, 
until  one  day  it  has  happened  to  him  to  meet  physi- 
cally the  person  whom  he  has  been  trying  to  assist, 
and  to  be  much  comforted  to  see  the  improvement  in 
him.  Sometimes  it  happens  that  the  friend  dates 
the  commencement  of  his  recovery  from  a  particular 
night  on  which  he  had  a  pleasant  or  a  remarkable 
dream;  and  the  helper  is  startled  when  he  remem- 
bers that  it  was  on  that  very  night  that  he  made  a 
specially  determined  effort  to  help  that  man.     The 


64  THE  INNER  LIFE 

first  time  that  this  happens,  the  helper  probably  per- 
suades himself  that  it  is  a  mere  accident;  but  when 
a  sufficient  number  of  coincidences  have  accumulated 
he  begins  to  see  that  there  is  something  more  in  it 
than  that.  The  beginner  therefore  should  do  his 
best,  and  be  content  to  wait  as  far  as  results  are 
concerned. 

There  is  another  simple  experiment  which  has 
greatly  helped  some  beginners  in  gaining  confidence. 
Let  a  man  resolve  to  visit  astrally  some  room  which 
is  well  known  to  him — one,  let  us  say,  in  a  friend's 
house;  and  let  him  note  carefully  the  arrangement 
of  the  furniture  and  books.  Or  if,  without  pre- 
viously intending  it,  the  experimenter  finds  himself 
during  sleep  in  a  spot  which  he  recognises  (that  is, 
in  ordinary  parlance,  if  he  dreams  of  a  certain  place) 
he  should  set  himself  to  observe  it  with  great  care. 
If  when  he  remembers  this  in  the  morning  it  seems 
to  him  that  everything  in  that  room  was  exactly  as 
when  he  last  saw  it  physically,  there  is  nothing  to 
prove  that  it  was  not  really  a  mere  dream  or  memory ; 
but  if  he  recollects  some  decided  change  in  the  ar- 
rangements, or  if  there  is  something  new  and  un- 
expected, it  is  distinctly  worth  his  while  to  go, 
physically  in  the  morning  to  visit  that  room,  in  order 
to  test  whether  his  nocturnal  vision  has  been  correct. 

All  those  of  us  who  are  definitely  engaged  in  astral 
work  have  necessarily  at  one  time  or  another  taken 
in  hand  a  number  of  cases  which  needed  help.  Such 
help  may  occasionally  be  of  the  nature  of  a  surgical 
operation — something  which  can  be  done  once  for 
all,  and  then  put  aside;  but  far  more  often  wb4  is 
needed  is  comfort,  reassurance  and  strengthening 
which  must  be  repeated  day  after  day  ih  order  that 
it    may    gradually    sink    into    the    texture    of    some 


INVISIBLE  HELPERS  65 

wounded  nature  and  transmute  it  into  something 
braver  and  nobler.  Or  sometimes  it  is  knowledge 
which  must  be  given  little  by  little  as  the  mind  opens 
to  it  and  is  able  to  bear  it.  Thus  it  comes  that  each 
worker  has  a  number  of  chronic  cases,  clients, 
patients — call  them  what  you  will — whom  he  visits 
every  night,  just  as  a  doctor  upon  earth  makes  a 
regular  round  among  his  patients. 

It  often  happens  also  that  those  who  have  been 
thus  helped  are  filled  with  gratitude  towards  the 
worker,  and  attach  themselves  to  him  in  order  to 
second  his  efforts,  and  to  pass  on  to  others  the  bene- 
fits which  they  have  thus  received.  So  it  comes  that 
each  worker  is  usually  the  centre  of  a  small  group, 
the  leader  of  a  little  band  of  helpers  for  whom  he  is 
always  able  to  find  constant  employment.  For  ex- 
ample, a  large  number  of  people  who  die  are  much 
in  the  position  of  children  afraid  of  the  dark.  One 
may  reason  with  them,  and  argue  patiently  and  con- 
vincingly that  there  is  nothing  whatever  to  fear; 
but  a  hand  that  the  child  can  hold  is  of  more  practi- 
cal use  to  him  than  a  whole  chapter  of  arguments. 

The  astral  worker,  with  a  score  of  other  cases 
needing  immediate  attention,  cannot  possibly  spend 
the  whole  night  in  standing  by  and  comforting  one 
nervous  or  doubting  patient;  but  he  can  detach  for 
that  purpose  one  of  his  earnest  followers  who  is  not 
so  busily  occupied,  and  is  therefore  able  to  devote 
himself  to  that  charitable  work.  For  to  comfort  the 
child  in  the  dark  no  brilliant  scientific  knowledge 
is  needed;  what  he  wants  is  a  kindly  hand  and  the 
sense  of  companionship.  So  that  work  can  be  found 
in  the  astral  world  for  any  number  of  workers,  and 
everyone  who  wishes,  man,  woman  or  child,  may  be 
one  of  them.     For  the  larger  and  more  comprehen- 


66  THE  INNER  LIFE 

sive  varieties  of  work,  and  for  the  direction  of  the 
work,  much  knowledge  is  of  course  required;  but  a 
heart  full  of  love  and  the  earnest  desire  to  help  is 
equipment  enough  to  enable  any  one  to  become  one 
of  the  minor  comforters,  and  even  that  humble  effort 
brings  in  its  train  a  blessing  beyond  all  calculation. 

When  the  astral  worker  finally  lays  aside  the 
physical  body  for  this  incarnation,  he  finds  himself 
among  an  army  of  grateful  friends  who  rejoice  un- 
reservedly that  he  is  now  able  to  spend  the  whole 
of  his  life  with  them  instead  of  only  a  third  of  it. 
For  such  a  worker  there  will  be  no  sense  of  strange- 
ness or  newness  in  the  condition  of  the  life  after 
death.  The  change  for  him  means  only  that  he  will 
then  be  able  to  devote  the  whole  of  his  time  to  what 
is  even  now  by  far  the  happiest  and  most  effective 
part  of  his  work — a  part  which  he  takes  up  every 
night  with  joy  and  lays  aside  every  morning  with 
regret — the  real  life,  in  which  our  days  of  physical 
existence  are  but  dull  and  featureless  interludes. 

There  are  one  or  two  other  points  with  regard  to 
the  astral  life  which  it  is  desirable  for  the  worker 
to  try  to  understand.  One  of  these  is  the  method 
of  what  I  suppose  we  must  call  speech — the  com- 
munication of  ideas  on  the  astral  plane. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  understand  down  here  the 
substitute  for  language  which  is  used  in  the  astral 
world.  Sound  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word  is 
not  possible  there — indeed  it  is  not  possible  even  in 
the  higher  part  of  the  purely  physical  plane.  As 
soon  as  one  rises  above  the  air  into  the  etheric 
regions,  there  is  no  more  possibility  of  sound  as  we 
understand  the  word.  Yet  the  symbol  of  sound  is 
used  very  much  higher,  for  we  constantly  find  refer- 
ences to  the  spoken  word  of  the  LOGOS,  which  calls 
the  worlds  into  manifestation. 


INVISIBLE  HELPERS  67 

If  in  the  morning  we  remember  an  experience  of 
the  previous  night,  such  as  the  meeting  with  a  friend 
or  the  attendance  at  a  lecture,  it  will  always  seem 
to  us  that  we  heard  a  voice  in  the  usual  terrestrial 
way,  and  that  we  ourselves  replied  co  it,  also  audi- 
bly. In  reality  this  is  not  so;  it  is  merely  that  when 
we  bring  through  a  recollection  to  the  physical  brain 
we  instinctively  express  it  in  terms  of  the  ordinary 
senses.  Yet  it  would  not  be  correct  to  say  that  the 
language  of  the  astral  world  is  thought-transference; 
the  most  that  could  be  said  is  that  it  is  the  trans- 
ference of  a  thought  formulated  in  a  particular  way. 

In  the  mental  world  one  formulates  a  thought  and 
it  is  instantly  transmitted  to  the  mind  of  another 
without  any  expression  in  the  form  of  words.  There- 
fore on  that  plane  language  does  not  matter  in  the 
least;  but  helpers  working  in  the  astral  world,  who 
have  not  yet  the  power  to  use  the  mental  vehicle, 
must  depend  on  the  facilities  offered  by  the  astral 
plane  itself.  These  lie  as  it  were  half  way  between 
the  thought-transference  of  the  mental  world  and 
the  concrete  speech  of  the  physical,  but  it  is  still 
necessary  to  formulate  the  thought  in  words.  It  is 
as  though  one  showed  such  formulation  to  the  other 
party  in  the  dialogue,  and  he  replied  (almost  simul- 
taneously, but  not  quite)  by  showing  in  the  same 
way  his  formulated  reply.  For  this  exchange  it  is 
necessary  that  the  two  parties  should  have  a  language 
in  common;  therefore  the  more  languages  an  astral- 
plane  helper  knows,  the  more  useful  he  is. 

The  pupils  of  the  Masters,  however,  have  been 
taught  to  form  a  special  kind  of  temporary  vehicle, 
in  order  to  meet  these  difficulties.  They  habitually 
leave  their  astral  bodies  with  the  physical;  they 
travel  about  in  their  mental  bodies,  and  they  materia- 


68  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Use  a  temporary  astral  body  from  surrounding  matter 
when  they  need  it  for  astral  work.  All  who  have 
been  taught  to  do  this  have  the  advantage  of  the 
mental-plane  method  of  thought-transference  so  far 
as  understanding  another  man  is  concerned,  though 
their  power  to  convey  a  thought  in  that  way  is  limited 
by  the  degree  of  development  of  that  other  man's 
astral  body. 

Apart  from  definitely  trained  pupils,  there  are 
very  few  people  who  consciously  work  in  the  mental 
body — for  to  do  so  means  years  of  practice  in  medi- 
tation and  special  effort.  We  know  that  a  man  in 
the  heaven-world  shuts  himself  up  within  a  shell  of 
his  own  thoughts,  and  that  these  thoughts  then  act 
as  channels  through  which  the  life  of  the  mental 
world  can  affect  him.  But  we  cannot  call  this 
functioning  on  the  mental  plane,  for  that  involves 
the  free  moving  about  on  that  plane,  and  the  observa- 
tion of  what  exists  there. 

Fortunately,  the  mental  elemental  does  not  rear- 
range the  mental  body  after  death,  so  that  we  have 
not  the  same  kind  of  trouble  with  it  as  with  the 
desire-elemental  on  the  astral  plane.  Indeed,  the 
elemental  essence  of  the  mental  plane  differs  greatly 
from  that  of  the  astral.  It  is  a  whole  chain  behind 
the  other,  and  therefore  it  has  not  the  same  force. 
It  is  trying  to  deal  with,  for  it  is  largely  responsi- 
ble for  our  wandering  thoughts,  as  it  darts  constantly 
from  one  thing  to  another;  but  at  least  it  does  not 
make  a  shell  of  any  sort,  although  certain  portions 
of  the  mental  body  may  become  hardened,  as  I  have 
explained  when  dealing  with  that  subject. 

When  a  man  functions  in  the  mental  vehicle  he 
leaves  the  astral  body  behind  him  in  a  condition  of 
suspended  animation,  along  with  the  physical.    If  he 


INVISIBLE  HELPERS  69 

finds  it  necessary  he  can  easily  surround  that  torpid 
astral  body  with  a  shell,  or  he  can  set  up  in  it  vibra- 
tions which  render  it  impervious  to  all  evil  influ- 
ences. It  is  unquestionably  possible  for  any  man  in 
process  of  time,  by  meditation  upon  the  Logos  or 
the  Master,  to  raise  himself  first  to  the  astral  and 
then  to  the  mental  levels;  but  none  can  say  how  long 
it  will  take,  as  that  depends  entirely  upon  the  past 
of  the  student. 

It  is  quite  possible  for  any  person  when  upon  the 
astral  plane  after  death  to  set  himself  to  study,  and 
to  acquire  entirely  new  ideas.  I  have  known  people 
who  learnt  Theosophy  for  the  first  time  in  the  astral 
world.  I  have  even  heard  of  a  case  in  which  a  lady 
learnt  music  there,  but  that  is  unusual.  Probably 
some  dead  person  gave  her  lessons,  or  it  may  be  that 
the  teacher  was  a  living  musician  who  was  on  the 
astral  plane  at  the  same  time  as  the  lady.  In  astral 
life  people  often  think  that  they  are  playing  on 
astral  instruments,  but  in  reality  they  are  only  mak- 
ing vibrations  by  their  thought,  which  produce  the 
effect  of  sound.  There  is  a  special  class  of  devas 
who  respond  to  music  and  express  themselves  through 
it,  and  sometimes  they  are  willing  to  teach  people  to 
whom  music  is  the  first  and  only  thing  in  life. 

Most  dead  people  shut  themselves  out  from  many 
of  the  possibilities  of  the  plane,  by  accepting  the  re- 
arrangement of  the  body  at  death,  which  prevents 
them  from  seeing  anything  belonging  to  the  higher 
levels.  The  Theosophist  will  not  allow  this  rear- 
rangement, because  he  intends  to  work,  and  therefore 
he  must  be  free  to  move  through  all  the  sub-planes. 
We  cannot  get  rid  of  elemental  essence,  but  we  can 
subdue  the  desire-elemental,  draw  in  the  finer  types 
of  matter,  and  make  the  ego  strong  to  keep  the  upper 


70  THE  INNER  LIFE 

hand.  The  essence  wants  violent  emotion,  so  as  to 
evolve  downwards — which,  it  must  be  remembered, 
is  its  proper  and  legitimate  course  of  evolution.  If 
it  knew  of  our  existence,  we  should  appear  to  it  to 
be  evil  beings  and  tempters,  trying  to  prevent  the 
evolution  which  it  knows  to  be  right  for  it.  If  we 
steadfastly  refuse  to  allow  our  astral  body  to  vibrate 
at  the  rate  peculiar  to  the  coarser  matter,  that 
coarser  matter  will  gradually  be  discharged  from 
the  body,  which  will  become  finer  in  texture,  and 
the  desire-elemental  will  be  of  a  less  active  kind. 

The  rearrangement  which  the  desire-elemental 
produces  after  death  is  over  the  surface  of  the  counter- 
part of  the  physical  body,  not  over  the  surface  of  the 
egg  which  surrounds  it.  The  elemental  tries  to  in- 
spire a  feeling  of  terror  in  the  man  who  is  jolting 
him  out  of  this  arrangement,  in  order  to  deter  him 
from  doing  so.  This  is  one  reason  why  it  is  so  use- 
ful to  have  knowledge  of  these  matters  before  death. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  sleep  in  the  astral  world. 
The  need  of  sleep  on  the  physical  plane  is  that  it 
calms  the  physical  centres  and  allows  them  time  to 
rebuild  themselves  chemically,  so  that  the  astral 
body  can  work  more  freely,  through  a  better  vehicle; 
but  on  the  astral  plane  there  is  no  fatigue,  unless 
we  may  call  by  that  name  the  gradual  slackening 
down  of  all  the  energies  when  the  end  of  the  astral 
life  is  approaching. 

It  is  possible  to  forget  upon  the  astral  plane,  just 
as  it  is  upon  the  physical.  I  mean  in  this  case  not 
the  loss  of  memory  between  two  planes,  which  is  so 
common,  but  the  actually  being  unable  to  remember 
on  the  astral  plane  to-night  some  of  the  details  of 
what  one  did  last  night  or  last  year.  Indeed,  per- 
haps it  is  even  easier  to  forget  on  the  astral  plane 


REMEMBERING  ASTRAL  EXPERIENCE  71 

than  on  the  physical,  because  that  world  is  so  busy 
and  so  populous. 

Knowledge  of  a  person  in  the  astral  world  does 
not  necessarily  mean  knowledge  of  the  physical  life 
of  that  person.  For  example,  many  of  us  know 
Madame  Blavatsky  in  her  new  body  exceedingly 
well  on  the  astral  plane,  yet  none  of  us  have  yet  seen 
that  body  physically.  She  often  uses  her  old  form, 
though  generally  the  new  astral  body  now. 


Remembering  Astral  Experience 

When  you  leave  your  body  to-night,  you  will  re- 
member all  that  you  did  last  night  and  during  the 
day — in  fact,  you  will  have  the  whole  of  your 
present  waking  memory,  plus  that  of  your  nightly 
astral  life.  The  astral  memory  includes  the  physi- 
cal, but  your  physical  brain  does  not  remember  the 
astral  experience,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  had 
no  share  in  it. 

A  special  link  must  be  made,  or  rather  an  obstacle 
must  be  removed,  in  order  to  bring  the  memory 
through  into  the  physical  brain.  In  the  slow  course 
of  evolution  the  power  of  perfect  memory  will  come 
to  every  one,  so  that  there  will  no  longer  be  any  veil 
between  the  two  planes.  Apart  from  this  full  de- 
velopment sometimes  something  occurs  which  the 
man  feels  that  he  ought  to  remember  on  the  physi- 
cal plane,  and  in  that  case  he  makes  a  special  effort 
to  impress  it  upon  the  brain,  in  order  that  it  may  be 
remembered  in  the  morning.  There  are  some  events, 
too,  which  make  such  a  vivid  impression  upon  the 


72  THE  INNER  LIFE 

astral  body  that  they  become  impressed  upon  the 
physical  brain  by  a  kind  of  repercussion. 

It  is  comparatively  rarely,  however,  that  such  an 
impression  is  perfect,  and  there  may  be  many  stages 
of  imperfection.  This  is  one  source  of  what  we  call 
dreams,  and  we  know  how  confused  and  incomplete 
and  even  ridiculous  they  may  often  be.  One  form 
of  distortion  which  frequently  occurs  in  the  case  of 
the  unpractised  helper  is  that  he  confuses  himself 
with  the  person  to  whom  he  has  been  giving  assist- 
ance. 

I  remember  a  case  of  a  member  of  our  band  who 
was  deputed  to  assist  the  victim  of  an  explosion. 
He  was  warned  a  few  minutes  beforehand,  and  had 
time  enough  to  make  an  effort  to  calm  and  steady 
the  man's  mind,  and  then  immediately  after  the 
outburst  had  taken  place  he  was  still  on  hand  to 
continue  the  same  process;  but  in  the  morning,  when 
he  described  the  event  to  me,  he  declared  that  it 
seemed  exactly  as  though  he  himself  had  been  the 
victim  of  the  explosion.  He  had  identified  himself 
so  closely  with  his  patient  that  he  felt  the  shock  and 
the  sensation  of  flying  upwards  exactly  as,  we  must 
presume,  the  victim  felt  them.  In  another  case  the 
same  member  was  called  upon  to  assist  a  soldier  who 
was  driving  an  ammunition  waggon  down  an  exe- 
crable mountain  road,  and  was  thrown  off  and  killed 
by  the  wheels  passing  over  his  body.  In  this  case 
also  our  member  entirely  identified  himself  with  the 
soldier,  and  his  memory  of  the  event  was  that  he 
had  dreamed  of  driving  such  a  waggon  and  being 
thrown  from  it  and  killed,  just  as  the  real  driver  had 
been. 

In  other  cases  what  is  remembered  is  not  at  all  what 
really  happened,  but  rather  a  sort  of  symbolic  descrip- 


REMEMBERING  ASTRAL  EXPERIENCE  T$ 

tion  of  it,  sometimes  quite  elaborate  and  poetical. 
This  comes  evidently  from  the  image-making  charac- 
teristic of  the  ego — his  faculty  of  instantaneous 
dramatisation — and  it  sometimes  happens  that  the 
symbol  is  recollected  without  its  key ;  it  comes  through 
untranslated,  as  it  were,  so  that  unless  the  helper 
has  a  more  experienced  friend  at  hand  to  explain 
matters,  he  may  have  only  a  vague  idea  of  what  he 
has  really  done.  A  good  instance  of  this  came  before 
my  notice  many  years  ago — so  many  that,  as  I  made 
no  record  of  it  at  the  time,  I  am  not  now  quite  certain 
of  one  or  two  of  its  points,  and  am  therefore  obliged 
to  omit  some  of  it,  and  make  it  a  little  less  interest- 
ing than  I  think  it  really  was. 

The  helper  came  to  me  one  morning  to  relate  an 
exceedingly  vivid  dream  which  he  felt  sure  was  in 
reality  something  more  than  a  dream.  He  remem- 
bered having  seen  a  certain  young  lady  drowning  in 
the  sea.  I  believe  that  he  had  the  impression  that 
she  had  been  intentionally  thrown  in,  though  I  do  not 
think  that  he  had  any  vision  of  the  person  who  was 
supposed  to  have  done  this.  He  himself  could  not 
directly  assist  her,  as  he  was  present  only  in  the  astral 
body,  and  did  not  know  how  to  materialise  himself; 
but  his  keen  sense  of  the  imminence  of  the  peril  gave 
him  strength  to  impress  the  idea  of  danger  upon  the 
young  lady's  lover,  and  to  bring  him  to  the  scene, 
when  he  at  once  plunged  in  and  brought  her  ashore, 
delivering  her  into  the  arms  of  her  father.  The  helper 
remembered  the  faces  of  all  these  three  characters 
quite  clearly,  and  was  able  so  to  describe  them  that 
they  were  afterwards  readily  recognisable.  The 
helper  begged  me  to  look  into  this  case,  so  that  he 
might  know  how  far  his  clear  remembrance  was 
reliable. 


74  THE  INNER  LIFE 

On  doing  so,  I  found  to  my  surprise  that  the  whole 
story  was  symbolic,  and  that  the  facts  which  had 
really  occurred  were  of  a  different  nature.  The  young 
lady  was  motherless,  and  lived  practically  alone  with 
her  father.  She  seems  to  have  been  rich  as  well  as 
beautiful,  and  no  doubt  there  were  various  aspirants 
to  her  hand.  Our  story,  however,  has  to  do  only  with 
two  of  these ;  one,  a  most  estimable  but  bashful  young 
fellow  of  the  neighbourhood,  who  had  adored  her  since 
childhood,  had  grown  up  in  friendly  relations  with 
her,  and  had  in  fact  the  usual  half-understood,  half- 
implied  engagement  which  belongs  to  a  boy-and-girl 
love  affair.  The  other  was  a  person  distinctly  of  the 
adventurer  type,  handsome  and  dashing  and  captivat- 
ing on  the  surface,  but  in  reality  a  fortune-hunter  of 
false  and  unreliable  type.  She  was  dazzled  by  his 
superficial  brilliancy,  and  easily  persuaded  herself 
that  her  attraction  for  him  was  real  affection,  and 
that  her  previous  feelings  of  comradeship  for  her  boy 
friend  amounted  to  nothing. 

Her  father,  however,  was  much  more  clear-sighted 
than  she,  and  when  the  adventurer  was  presented  to 
him  he  seems  to  have  received  him  with  marked  cool- 
ness, and  declined  altogether,  though  kindly  enough, 
to  sanction  his  daughter's  marriage  with  a  gentleman 
of  whom  he  knew  nothing.  This  was  a  great  blow 
to  the  young  lady,  and  the  adventurer,  meeting  her 
in  secret,  easily  persuaded  her  that  she  was  a  terribly 
ill-used  and  misunderstood  person,  that  her  father 
was  quite  unbearably  tyrannical  and  ridiculously  old- 
fashioned,  that  the  only  thing  left  for  her  to  do  as  a 
girl  of  spirit  was  to  show  that  she  meant  what  she 
said  by  eloping  with  him  (the  aforesaid  adventurer)' 
after  which  of  course  the  father  would  come  round  to 
a  more  sensible  view  of  life,  and  the  future  would 
take  on  the  rosiest  of  hues. 


REMEMBERING  ASTRAL  EXPERIENCE  75 

The  foolish  girl  believed  him,  and  he  gradually 
worked  upon  her  feelings  until  she  consented;  and 
the  particular  night  upon  which  our  friend  the  helper 
came  upon  the  scene  was  that  which  had  been  chosen 
for  the  elopement.  In  true  melodramatic  style  the 
adventurer  was  waiting  round  the  corner  with  a  car- 
riage, and  the  girl  was  in  her  room  hurriedly  pre- 
paring herself  to  slip  out  and  join  him. 

Not  unnaturally,  when  it  came  actually  to  the  point 
her  mind  was  much  disturbed,  and  she  found  it  very 
difficult  to  take  the  final  step.  It  was  this  fluttering 
of  the  mind,  this  earnest  desire  for  aid  in  decision, 
which  attracted  the  notice  of  the  helper  as  he  was 
drifting  casually  by.  Reading  her  thoughts,  he  quickly 
grasped  the  situation,  and  at  once  began  to  try  to  in- 
fluence her  against  the  rash  step  which  she  contem- 
plated. Her  mind,  however,  was  in  such  a  condition 
that  he  was  unable  to  impress  himself  upon  her  as 
he  wished,  and  he  looked  round  in  great  anxiety  for 
someone  who  should  prove  more  amenable  to  his  in- 
fluence. He  tried  to  seize  upon  the  father,  but  he  was 
engaged  in  his  library  in  some  literary  work  of  so 
engrossing  a  character  that  it  proved  impossible  to 
attract  his  attention. 

Fortunately,  however,  the  half-forgotten  lover  of 
her  youth  happened  to  be  within  reach,  wandering 
about  in  the  starlight  and  looking  up  at  her  window 
in  the  approved  style  of  young  lovers  all  the  world 
over.  The  helper  pounced  upon  him,  seeing  the  con- 
dition of  his  sentiments,  and  to  his  great  delight 
found  him  more  receptive.  His  deep  love  made  him 
anxious,  and  it  was  easy  enough  to  influence  him  to 
walk  far  enough  to  see  the  carriage  and  the  adven- 
turer in  waiting  around  the  corner.  His  affection 
quickened  his  wits,  and  he  instantly  grasped  the  situa- 


76  THE  INNER  LIFE 

tion,  and  was  filled  with  horror  and  dismay.  To  do 
him  justice,  at  that  supreme  moment  it  was  not  of 
himself  that  he  thought,  not  that  he  was  on  the  eve 
of  losing  her,  but  that  she  was  on  the  eve  of  throw- 
ing herself  away  and  ruining  the  whole  of  her  future 
life.  In  his  excitement  he  forgot  all  about  conven- 
tion; he  made  his  way  into  the  house  (for  he  had 
known  the  place  since  childhood),  rushed  up  the  stairs 
and  met  her  at  the  door  of  her  room. 

The  words  which  he  said  to  her  neither  he  nor  she 
can  remember  now,  but  in  wild  and  earnest  pleading 
he  besought  her  to  think  before  doing  this  terrible 
thing,  to  realise  clearly  into  what  an  abyss  she  was 
about  to  throw  herself,  to  bethink  herself  well  before 
entering  upon  the  path  of  destruction,  and  at  least, 
before  doing  anything  more,  to  consult  openly  with 
the  loving  father  whom  she  was  requiting  so  ill  for 
his  ceaseless  care  of  her. 

The  shock  of  his  sudden  appearance  and  the  fervour 
of  his  objurgations  awakened  her  as  from  a  sort  of 
trance;  and  she  offered  scarcely  any  resistance  when 
he  dragged  her  off  then  and  there  to  her  father  as  he 
sat  working  in  his  library.  The  astonishment  of  the 
father  may  be  imagined,  when  the  story  was  unfolded 
before  him.  He  had  had  not  the  slightest  conception 
of  his  daughter's  attitude,  and  she  herself,  now  that 
the  spell  was  shaken  off,  could  not  imagine  how  she 
had  ever  been  able  really  to  contemplate  such  a  step. 
Both  she  and  her  father  overflowed  with  gratitude  to 
the  loyal  young  lover,  and  before  he  left  her  that 
night  she  had  ratified  the  old  childish  engagement, 
and  promised  to  be  his  wife  at  no  remote  date. 

This  was  what  had  really  happened,  and  one  can 
see  that  the  symbolism  chosen  by  the  ego  of  the  helper 
was  by  no  means  inapt,  however  misleading  it  may 
have  been  as  to  the  actual  facts. 


REMEMBERING  ASTRAL  EXPERIENCE  77 

Sometimes  nothing  comes  through  that  can  be 
called  an  actual  memory,  but  only  the  effect  of  some- 
thing that  has  been  seen  or  that  has  happened.  A 
man  may  wake  in  the  morning  with  a  strong  feeling 
of  elation  and  success,  without  in  the  least  being  able 
to  recall  in  what  he  has  succeeded.  This  generally 
means  some  good  piece  of  work  well  done,  but  it  is 
often  impossible  for  the  man  to  recover  the  details. 
At  other  times  he  may  bring  back  with  him  a  feeling 
of  reverence,  a  sense  of  great  holiness.  This  usually 
means  that  he  has  been  in  the  presence  of  some  one 
much  greater  than  himself,  or  has  seen  some  direct 
evidence  of  the  greater  power.  Sometimes,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  person  may  wake  with  a  feeling  of  terri- 
ble fear.  That  is  sometimes  due  only  to  the  alarm  of 
the  physical  body  at  some  unaccustomed  sensation; 
but  it  is  sometimes  also  due  to  having  encountered 
something  horrible  in  the  astral  world.  Or  again  it 
may  arise  merely  from  sympathy  with  some  astral 
entity  who  is  in  a  state  of  terror,  for  it  is  a  frequent 
thing  on  the  astral  plane  that  one  person  should  be 
strongly  influenced  by  sympathy  with  another's  con- 
dition. 

Few  people,  however,  when  in  the  astral  body, 
care  whether  the  physical  brain  remembers  or  not, 
and  nine  out  of  ten  much  dislike  returning  to  the 
body.  But  if  you  specially  wish  to  get  into  the  habit 
of  remembering,  the  procedure  which  I  should  re- 
commend is  the  following: 

To  make  the  link,  first  remember,  when  you  are 
out  of  the  body,  that  you  wish  to  do  so.  Then  you 
must  determine  to  come  back  into  the  body  slowly, 
instead  of  with  a  rush  and  a  little  jerk,  as  is  usually 
the  case.  It  is  this  jerk  that  prevents  one  from  re- 
membering.    Stop  yourself  and  say,  just  before  you 


78  THE  INNER  LIFE 

awake:  "There  is  my  body;  I  am  just  about  to 
enter  it.  As  soon  as  I  am  in  it  I  will  make  it  sit  up 
and  write  down  all  it  can  remember."  Then  enter 
it  calmly,  sit  up  instantly  and  write  down  all  you  are 
able  to  remember  at  once.  If  you  wait  a  few  min- 
utes, all  will  usually  be  lost.  But  each  fact  that  you 
bring  through  will  serve  as  a  link  for  other  mem- 
ories. The  notes  may  seem  a  little  incoherent  when 
you  read  them  over  afterwards,  but  never  mind  that; 
it  is  because  you  are  trying  to  give  an  account  in 
physical  words  of  the  experiences  of  another  plane. 
In  this  way  you  will  gradually  recover  the  memory, 
though  it  may  take  a  long  time;  great  patience  is 
necessary. 

You  should  try  to  remember  when  out  of  the  body 
that  you  are  in  the  astral  world,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  comfort  to  the  physical  consciousness  if  some 
memory  could  be  carried  through.  Be  systematic  in 
your  efforts.  Every  time  that  you  succeed  in  bring- 
ing something  through,  it  will  make  it  easier  to  re- 
member next  time,  and  will  bring  nearer  the  period 
when  there  will  be  habitual  automatic  recollection. 
At  present  there  is  a  moment  of  unconsciousness  be- 
tween sleeping  and  waking,  and  this  acts  as  a  veil. 
It  is  caused  by  the  closely-woven  web  of  atomic  mat- 
ter through  which  the  vibrations  have  to  pass. 

In  coming  back  to  the  physical  body  from  the 
astral  world  there  is  a  feeling  of  great  constraint, 
as  though  one  were  being  enveloped  in  a  thick,  heavy 
cloak.  The  joy  of  life  on  the  astral  plane  is  so  great 
that  physical  life  in  comparison  with  it  seems  no  life 
at  all.  Many  men  who  can  function  in  the  astral 
world  during  the  sleep  of  the  physical  body  regard 
the  daily  return  to  the  physical  world  as  men  often 
do  their  daily  journey  to  the  office.     They  do  not 


REMEMBERING  ASTRAL  EXPERIENCE  79 

positively  dislike  it,  but  they  would  not  do  it  unless 
they  were  compelled. 

When  the  man  is  free  in  the  mental  world,  the 
astral  life  similarly  seems  a  state  of  bondage,  and  so  on, 
until  we  reach  the  buddhic  world,  which  is  in  its  essence 
bliss.  After  once  reaching  that  level,  although  the 
man  on  the  physical  plane  is  still  cramped  and  unable 
to  express  the  bliss,  he  nevertheless  has  it  all  the  time, 
and  he  knows  that  all  others  who  are  unable  to  feel 
it  now  will  feel  and  know  it  at  some  future  time. 
Even  if  only  for  a  moment  you  could  feel  the  reality 
of  the  higher  planes,  your  life  would  never  again  be 
the  same. 

Astral  pleasures  are  much  greater  than  those  of 
the  physical  world,  and  there  is  danger  of  people 
being  turned  aside  by  them  from  the  path  of  progress. 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  realise  while  one  is  confined 
in  the  physical  body  the  great  attractiveness  of  these 
pleasures.  But  even  the  delights  of  the  astral  life 
do  not  present  a  serious  danger  to  those  who  have 
realised  a  little  of  something  higher.  After  death 
one  should  try  to  pass  through  the  astral  levels  as 
speedily  as  possible,  consistently  with  usefulness,  and 
not  yield  to  its  refined  pleasures  any  more  than  to  the 
physical.  One  must  not  only  overcome  physical  de- 
sire by  knowledge  of  the  astral  or  the  heaven-life, 
but  also  go  beyond  even  them,  and  this  not  merely 
for  the  sake  of  the  joy  of  the  spiritual  life,  but  in 
order  to  replace  the  fleeting  by  the  everlasting. 


8J  THE  INNER  LIFE 


The  Higher  Dimensions 

If  there  are  seven  dimensions  at  all,  there  are 
seven  dimensions  always  and  everywhere,  and  it 
makes  no  difference  to  that  fundamental  fact  in 
nature  whether  the  consciousness  of  any  individual 
happens  to  be  acting  through  his  physical  body,  his 
astral  body  or  his  nirvanic  vehicle.  In  the  last  case 
he  has  the  power  to  see  and  understand  the  whole 
thing.  In  any  of  the  other  cases  his  capacities  are 
limited.  There  is  therefore  no  such  thing  as  a  three- 
dimensional  or  four-dimensional  object  or  being.  If 
space  has  seven  dimensions,  every  object  must  exist 
within  that  space,  and  the  difference  between  us  is 
merely  in  our  power  of  perception. 

Physically  we  see  only  three  dimensions,  and  there- 
fore we  see  all  objects  and  beings  very  partially. 
One  who  has  the  power  to  see  four  dimensions  still 
sees  objects  only  partially,  although  he  sees  more  of 
them  than  the  other  man.  We  find  ourselves  in  the 
midst  of  a  vast  universe  built  of  matter  of  varying 
degrees  of  tenuity,  which  exists  in  a  space  of  (let  us 
suppose)  seven  dimensions.  But  we  find  ourselves 
in  possession  of  a  consciousness  which  is  capable  of 
appreciating  only  three  of  those  dimensions,  and  only 
matter  of  certain  degrees  of  tenuity.  All  matter  of 
other  and  higher  degrees  is  for  us  as  if  it  did  not 
exist.  All  dimensions  beyond  the  three  are  also  to 
us  as  though  they  did  not  exist. 

But  our  lack  of  perceptive  power  does  not  in  any 
way  affect  the  objects  themselves.  A  man  picks  up 
(let  us  say)  a  piece  of  stone.     He  can  see  only  the 


THE  HIGHER  DIMENSIONS  81 

physical  particles  of  that  stone,  but  that  in  no  way 
affects  the  undoubted  fact  that  that  stone  at  the  same 
time  possesses  within  it  particles  of  matter  of  the 
astral  and  mental  and  other  higher  planes.  In  just 
the  same  way,  that  stone  must  theoretically  possess 
some  sort  of  extension,  however  small,  in  all  the 
seven  dimensions;  but  that  fact  is  in  no  way  affected 
by  the  other  fact  that  the  man's  consciousness  can 
appreciate  only  three  of  those  dimensions. 

To  examine  that  object  the  man  is  using  a  physical 
organ  (the  eye)  which  is  capable  of  appreciating 
only  certain  rates  of  undulation  radiated  by  certain 
types  of  matter.  If  he  should  develope  what  we  call 
astral  consciousness  he  would  then  be  employing  an 
organ  which  is  capable  of  responding  only  to  the  vi- 
brations radiated  by  another  and  finer  part  of  that 
piece  of  stone.  If  in  developing  the  astral  con- 
sciousness he  had  lost  the  physical — that  is,  if  he 
had  left  his  physical  body — he  would  be  able  to  see 
only  the  astral  and  not  the  physical.  But  of  course 
the  object  itself  is  not  affected  in  any  way,  and  the 
physical  part  of  it  has  not  ceased  to  exist  because 
the  man  has  for  the  time  lost  the  power  to  see  it. 
If  he  developed  his  astral  consciousness  so  that  he 
could  use  it  simultaneously  with  the  physical,  he 
would  then  be  able  to  see  both  the  physical  and  astral 
parts  of  the  object  at  the  same  time,  though  proba- 
bly not  both  with  equal  clearness  at  absolutely  the 
same  moment. 

Now,  just  as  all  the  higher  forms  of  matter  exist 
in  every  object,  although  untrained  people  cannot  see 
them,  so  all  the  dimensions  of  space  must  appertain 
to  every  object,  although  the  number  of  those  dimen- 
sions that  we  can  observe  depends  upon  the  condition 
of  our  consciousness.    In  physical  life  we  can  normally 


82  THE  INNER  LIFE 

conceive  only  three,  though  by  careful  special  train- 
ing the  brain  may  be  educated  into  grasping  some 
of  the  simpler  fourth-dimensional  forms.  The  astral 
consciousness  has  the  power  of  grasping  four  of 
these  dimensions,  but  it  by  no  means  follows  that  a 
man  who  opens  his  astral  consciousness  immediately 
perceives  the  extension  of  every  object  in  four  di- 
mensions; on  the  contrary,  it  is  quite  certain  that 
the  average  man  does  not  perceive  this  at  all  when 
he  enters  the  astral  plane.  He  realises  it  only  as  a 
certain  blurring — a  kind  of  incomprehensible  differ- 
ence in  the  things  that  he  used  to  see;  and  most  men 
go  through  their  astral  lives  without  discovering 
more  than  that  of  the  qualities  of  the  matter  which 
surrounds  them. 

We  should  say,  then,  not  that  the  possession  of 
astral  vision  at  once  causes  the  man  to  appreciate 
the  fourth  dimension,  but  rather  that  it  gives  him 
the  power  to  develope  that  faculty  by  long,  careful 
and  patient  practice,  if  he  knows  anything  about  the 
matter  and  cares  to  take  the  trouble.  Entities  be- 
longing to  the  astral  plane,  and  presumably  igno- 
rant of  any  other  (such  as  nature-spirits,  for  example) 
have  by  nature  the  faculty  of  seeing  the  fourth- 
dimensional  aspect  of  all  objects.  But  we  must  not 
therefore  suppose  that  they  see  them  perfectly,  since 
they  perceive  only  the  astral  matter  in  them  and  not 
the  physical,  just  as  we  with  our  different  kind  of 
limitation  perceive  only  the  physical  and  not  the 
astral. 

It  has  never  been  taught,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
that  the  entities  of  the  astral  plane  are  conscious  of 
us  upon  the  physical  plane.  They  quite  clearly  and 
definitely  are  not  conscious  of  physical  matter  of  any 
kind.     But  they  are  conscious  of  the  astral  counter- 


THE  HIGHER  DIMENSIONS  83 

part  of  that  physical  matter,  which  for  all  practical 
purposes  comes  to  very  nearly  the  same  thing,  though 
not  quite. 

I  should  not  expect  the  higher  dimensions  to  mani- 
fest themselves  as  qualities  of  matter  to  our  physical 
consciousness,  though  it  is  conceivable  that  some  of 
them  might  do  so  in  certain  special  cases.  The 
density  of  a  gas,  for  example,  might  be  a  measure 
of  its  extent  in  the  fourth  dimension. 

If  an  object  passes  through  a  wall,  the  question 
of  the  fourth  dimension  is  not  raised,  nor  are  the 
properties  connected  with  it  employed  at  all.  But  in 
order  that  the  object  may  so  pass  through,  either 
it  or  a  portion  of  the  wall  corresponding  in  size  to 
it  must  be  disintegrated — that  is,  reduced  either  to 
the  atomic  or  to  one  of  the  etheric  conditions,  so  that 
the  particles  may  pass  freely  among  one  another  with- 
out hindrance.  That  is  entirely  a  three-dimensional 
method.  Another  and  quite  different  feat  is  not  to 
disintegrate  at  all  either  the  object  or  the  wall,  but  to 
bring  the  entire  object  in  by  another  direction  alto- 
gether, where  there  is  no  wall.  But  that  direction 
is  unknown  to  us  in  our  physical  consciousness. 

If  one  had  a  cup  made  of  porous  earthenware,  one 
could  no  doubt  fill  it  with  water  by  the  process  of 
reducing  the  water  to  steam  and  forcing  it  through 
the  sides  of  the  cup;  that  would  be  equivalent  to  the 
ordinary  process  of  disintegration  and  reintegra- 
tion, for  the  water,  reduced  to  a  higher  state  for  the 
purpose  of  being  forced  through  the  pores  of  the 
cup,  would  resume  its  natural  condition  when  it  had 
passed  through.  But  it  would  also  be  possible  to  fill 
the  cup  by  the  simpler  process  of  taking  off  the  lid 
and  pouring  in  the  water  from  above,  and  in  this 
case  the  water  need  not  be  changed  in  any  way,  be- 


64  THE  INNER  LIFE 

cause  it  is  introduced  into  the  cup  from  a  direction  in 
which  there  is  no  wall  to  penetrate.  These  are  simply 
two  ways  of  producing  the  same  result,  and  they  do 
not  mutually  exclude  each  other. 


^ijtrb  Rectum 

t%  f  otor  of  fElpntgljt 


THIED  SECTION 


The  Mental  Body 

FTER  reading  Man  Visible  and  Invisible 
students  have  sometimes  remarked  that 
the  list  of  qualities  there  given  seems  in- 
complete, and  that  nothing  is  said  as  to 
some  others  which  are  at  least  equally  com- 
mon— such  for  example  as  courage,  dignity,  cheerful- 
ness, truthfulness,  loyalty.  The  reason  that  these  were 
not  included  in  that  first  account  is  that  they  have  not, 
as  have  those  other  qualities,  readily  distinguishable 
colours;  but  it  must  not  therefore  be  supposed  that 
their  presence  or  absence  would  be  indistinguishable 
by  clairvoyant  vision.  Such  qualities  are  indicated 
by  differences  in  the  structure  of  the  mental  body,  or 
by  changes  in  its  surface ;  but  it  might  be  said,  broadly 
speaking,  that  they  are  represented  rather  by  form 
than  by  colour. 

It  will  be  remembered  that,  in  the  drawings  of  the 
mental  body  given  in  the  book  above  mentioned,  the 
colours  which  indicate  some  of  the  principal  qualities 
are  shown,  and  something  is  said  as  to  their  general 
arrangement  in  the  vehicle.  In  a  general  way,  all 
the  colours  denoting  good  qualities  are  to  be  found  in 
the  upper  half,  and  those  denoting  unpleasant  quali- 
ties are  mostly  in  the  lower  half.    The  violet  of  high 


88  THE  INNER  LIFE 

aspiration,  the  blue  of  devotion,  the  rose-colour  of 
affection,  the  yellow  which  indicates  intellect,  and 
even  the  orange  of  pride  or  ambition — all  these  belong 
to  the  upper  part,  while  thoughts  prompted  by  anger, 
selfishness  or  jealousy  gravitate  towards  the  bottom 
of  the  ovoid.  While  the  illustrations  there  given 
fairly  indicate  what  would  be  the  appearance  of  the 
mental  body  if  it  ever  were  really  at  rest,  there  is 
considerable  variation  from  those  types  when  the  man 
is  in  the  act  of  thinking  strongly  or  definitely. 

The  mental  unit  may  be  regarded  as  the  heart  and 
centre  of  the  mental  body,  and  upon  the  relative 
activity  of  the  different  parts  of  that  unit  the  appear- 
ance of  the  body  as  a  whole  to  a  great  extent  depends. 
The  various  activities  of  the  mind  fall  naturally  into 
certain  classes  or  divisions,  and  these  divisions  are  ex- 
pressed through  different  parts  of  the  mental  unit. 
Mental  units  are  by  no  means  all  the  same.  They 
differ  greatly  according  to  the  type  and  the  develop- 
ment of  their  owners.  If  such  a  mental  unit  lay  at 
rest  the  force  radiating  from  it  would  make  a  num- 
ber of  funnels  in  the  mental  body,  just  as  the  light 
shining  through  the  slide  in  a  magic  lantern  makes 
a  large  radiating  funnel  of  light  in  the  air  between 
the  lantern  and  the  sheet. 

In  this  case  the  surface  of  the  mental  body  may  be 
likened  to  the  sheet,  because  it  is  only  at  the  surface 
that  the  effect  becomes  visible  to  one  who  is  looking 
at  the  mental  body  from  the  outside;  so  that,  if  the 
mental  unit  were  at  rest,  we  should  see  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  mental  body  a  number  of  pictures  in 
colour,  representing  the  various  types  of  thought 
common  to  the  person,  with  presumably  dark  spaces 
between  them.  But  the  mental  unit,  like  all  other 
chemical  combinations,  is  rotating  rapidly  on  its  axiF, 


THE  MENTAL  BODY  89 

and  the  effect  of  this  is  that  in  the  mental  body  we 
have  a  series  of  bands,  not  always  quite  clearly  de- 
fined, nor  always  of  the  same  width,  but  still  readily 
distinguishable,  and  usually  in  about  the  same  relative 
positions. 

Where  aspirational  thought  exists,  it  invariably 
shows  itself  in  a  beautiful  little  violet  circle  at  the 
top  of  the  ovoid  of  the  mental  body.  As  the  aspirant 
draws  near  to  the  gateway  of  the  Path  this  circle 
increases  in  size  and  radiancy,  and  in  the  initiate  it 
is  a  splendid  glowing  cap  of  the  most  lovely  colour 
imaginable.  Below  it  comes  often  the  blue  ring  of 
devotional  thought,  usually  rather  a  narrow  one, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  few  whose  religion  is  really 
deep  and  genuine.  Next  to  that  we  may  have  the 
much  broader  zone  of  affectionate  thought,  which 
may  be  of  any  shade  of  crimson  or  rose-colour,  ac- 
cording to  the  type  of  affection  which  it  indicates. 
Near  the  zone  of  affection,  and  frequently  closely  con- 
nected with  it,  we  have  the  orange  band  which  ex- 
presses proud  and  ambitious  thought;  and  again  in  inti- 
mate relation  with  pride  comes  the  yellow  belt  of  in- 
tellect, commonly  divided  into  two  bands,  denoting 
respectively  the  philosophical  and  the  scientific  types 
of  thought.  The  place  of  this  yellow  colour  varies 
much  in  different  men;  sometimes  it  fills  the  whole  of 
the  upper  part  of  the  eggf  rising  above  devotion 
and  affection,  and  in  such  a  case  pride  is  generally 
excessive. 

Below  the  group  already  described,  and  occupying 
the  middle  section  of  the  ovoid,  is  the  broad  belt  de- 
voted to  concrete  shapes — the  part  of  the  mental 
body  from  which  all  ordinary  thought-forms  issue. 
The  principal  colour  here  is  green,  shaded  often 
with  brown  or  yellow  according  to  the  disposition  of 
the  person. 


90  THE  INNER  LIFE 

There  is  no  part  of  the  mental  body  which  varies 
more  widely  than  this.  Some  people  have  their 
mental  bodies  crowded  with  a  vast  number  of  con- 
crete images,  whereas  others  have  only  few.  In 
some  they  are  clear  and  well-outlined,  in  others  they 
are  vague  and  hazy  to  the  last  degree;  in  some  they 
are  classified  and  labelled  and  arranged  in  the  most 
orderly  fashion,  in  others  they  are  not  arranged  at 
all,  but  are  left  in  hopeless  confusion. 

In  the  lower  part  of  the  ovoid  come  the  belts  ex- 
pressing all  kinds  of  undesirable  thoughts.  A  kind 
of  muddy  precipitate  of  selfishness  too  often  fills  the 
lower  third  or  even  the  half  of  the  mental  body,  and 
above  this  is  sometimes  a  ring  portraying  hatred, 
cunning  or  fear.  Naturally,  as  men  develope,  this 
lower  part  vanishes,  and  the  upper  gradually  ex- 
pands until  it  fills  the  whole  body,  as  shown  in  the 
illustrations  in  Man  Visible  and  Invisible. 

Degrees  in  the  feeling  which  prompts  thought  are 
expressed  by  brilliance  of  colour.  In  devotional  feel- 
ing, for  example,  we  may  have  the  three  stages  of 
respect,  reverence  and  worship;  in  affection  we  may 
have  the  stages  of  good-will,  friendship  and  love. 
The  stronger  the  thought  the  larger  is  the  vibration; 
the  more  spiritual  and  unselfish  the  thought  the 
higher  is  the  vibration.  The  first  produces  brilliancy, 
the  second  delicacy  of  colour. 

Within  these  different  rings  or  zones  we  usually 
see  more  or  less  clearly  marked  striations,  and  many 
qualities  of  the  man  can  be  judged  by  an  examina- 
tion of  these  striations.  The  possession  of  a  strong 
will,  for  example,  brings  the  whole  mental  body 
into  far  more  level  definite  lines.  All  the  striations 
and  radiations  are  steady,  firm  and  clearly  dis- 
tinguishable,  whereas   in   the   case   of   a   weak   and 


THE  MENTAL  BODY  91 

vacillating  person  this  firmness  and  strength  of  line 
would  be  conspicuously  absent;  the  lines  separating 
the  different  qualities  would  be  indeterminate,  and 
the  striations  and  radiations  would  be  small,  weak 
and  wavy.  Courage  is  shown  by  firm  and  very 
strongly-marked  lines,  especially  in  the  orange  band 
connected  with  pride.  Dignity  also  expresses  itself 
principally  in  the  same  part  of  the  mental  body,  but 
by  a  calm  steadiness  and  assuredness  which  is  quite 
different  from  the  lines  of  courage. 

Truthfulness  and  accuracy  are  portrayed  very 
clearly  by  regularity  in  the  striations  of  the  part  of 
the  mental  body  devoted  to  concrete  forms,  and  by 
the  clearness  and  correctness  of  the  images  which 
appoar  there.  Loyalty  shows  itself  by  an  intensifi- 
cation both  of  affection  and  of  devotion,  and  by  the 
constant  formation,  in  that  part  of  the  ovoid,  of 
figures  of  the  person  to  whom  the  loyalty  is  felt.  In 
many  cases  of  loyalty,  affection  and  devotion,  a  very 
strong  permanent  image  is  made  of  the  objects  of 
these  feelings,  and  that  remains  floating  in  the  aura 
of  the  thinker,  so  that,  when  his  thought  turns 
towards  the  loved  or  adored  one,  the  force  which  he 
pours  out  strengthens  that  already  existing  image, 
instead  of  forming  a  new  one,  as  it  would  normally  do* 

Joy  shows  itself  in  a  general  brightening  and 
radiancy  of  both  the  mental  and  the  astral  bodies, 
as  also  in  a  peculiar  rippling  of  the  surface  of  the 
body.  General  cheerfulness  shows  itself  in  a  modi- 
fied bubbling  form  of  this,  and  also  in  a  steady 
serenity  which  is  pleasant  to  see.  Surprise,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  shown  by  a  sharp  constriction  of  the 
mental  body,  accompanied  by  an  increased  glow  in 
the  bands  of  affection  if  the  surprise  is  a  pleasant 
one,  and  by  a  change  of  colour  usually  involving  the 


92  THE  INNER  LIFE 

display  of  a  good  deal  of  brown  and  grey  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  ovoid  when  the  surprise  is  an  un- 
pleasant one.  This  constriction  is  usually  commu- 
nicated to  both  the  astral  and  the  physical  bodies, 
and  often  causes  singularly  unpleasant  feelings,  which 
affect  sometimes  the  solar  plexus  (resulting  in  sink- 
ing and  sickness)  and  sometimes  the  heart-centre,  in 
which  case  it  brings  palpitation  or  even  death; 
so  that  a  sudden  surprise  may  occasionally  kill 
one  who  has  a  weak  heart.  Awe  is  the  same  as 
wonder,  except  that  it  accompanied  by  a  profound 
change  in  the  devotional  part  of  the  mental  body, 
which  usually  swells  out  under  this  influence,  and 
has  its  striations  more  strongly  marked. 

At  the  moment  when  a  person's  thought  is  strongly 
directed  into  one  or  another  of  these  channels,  the 
part  of  the  mental  body  which  corresponds  to  that 
thought  usually  bulges  outwards  in  form  in  addition 
to  brightening  in  colour,  and  so  disturbs  for  the  time 
the  symmetry  of  the  ovoid.  In  many  people  such 
bulging  is  permanent,  and  that  always  means  that 
the  amount  of  thought  of  that  type  is  steadily  in- 
creasing. If,  for  example,  a  person  takes  up  some 
scientific  study,  and  therefore  suddenly  turns  his 
thoughts  in  that  direction  much  more  than  before, 
the  first  effect  will  be  such  protuberance  as  I  have 
described;  but  if  he  keeps  the  amount  of  his  thought 
on  scientific  subjects  steadily  at  the  same  level  which 
he  has  now  adopted,  the  protruding  portion  will 
gradually  sink  back  into  the  general  outline  of  the 
ovoid,  but  the  band  of  its  colour  will  have  become 
wider  than  before. 

If  however  the  man's  interest  in  scientific  sub- 
jects steadily  increases  in  force,  the  protrusion  will 
still  remain  in  evidence  even  though  the  band  has 


THE  MENTAL  BODY  93 

widened.  The  general  effect  of  this  is  that  in  the  un- 
developed man  the  lower  portion  of  the  ovoid  tends 
always  to  be  larger  than  the  upper,  so  that  the 
mental  and  astral  bodies  have  the  appearance  of  an 
egg  with  the  small  end  uppermost;  while  in  the  more 
developed  man  the  qualities  expressing  themselves  in 
the  higher  part  are  always  tending  to  increase,  and 
consequently  we  have  for  the  time  the  effect  of  an 
egg  with  its  smaller  end  pointing  downwards.  But 
the  tendency  always  is  for  the  symmetry  of  the  ovoid 
to  re-assert  itself  by  degrees,  so  that  such  appear- 
ances are  only  temporary. 

Reference  has  frequently  been  made  to  the  cease- 
less motion  of  the  matter  in  both  the  mental  and 
astral  bodies.  When  the  astral  body,  for  example,  is 
disturbed' by  any  sudden  emotion,  all  its  matter  is 
swept  about  as  if  by  a  violent  hurricane,  so  that  for 
the  time  being  the  colours  become  very  much  mixed. 
Presently,  however,  by  the  specific  gravity  of  the 
different  types  of  matter  which  reflect  or  emit  these 
various  colours,  the  whole  arrangement  will  sort 
itself  once  more  into  its  usual  zones.  Even  then  the 
matter  is  by  no  means  at  rest,  as  the  particles  are 
all  the  time  rushing  round  these  zones,  though  com- 
paratively rarely  leaving  their  own  belt  and  intrud- 
ing on  another.  But  this  movement  within  its  own  zone 
is  entirely  a  healthy  one;  one  in  whom  there  is  no 
such  circulation  is  a  mental  crustacean,  incapable  of 
growth  until  he  bursts  his  shell.  The  activity  of  the 
matter  in  any  particular  zone  increases  in  proportion 
to  the  amount  of  thought  devoted  to  the  subject  of 
which  it  is  an  expression. 

If  the  man  should  permit  his  thought  upon  any 
given  subject  to  stagnate,  that  stagnation  will  be 
faithfully   reproduced   in  the  matter  appropriate  to 


94  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  subject.  If  a  prejudice  should  grow  up  in  the 
man,  thought  on  that  particular  subject  ceases  alto- 
gether, and  a  small  eddy  forms  in  which  the  mental 
matter  runs  round  and  round  until  it  coagulates  and 
becomes  a  kind  of  wart.  Unless  and  until  this  wart 
is  worn  away  or  forcibly  rooted  out,  the  man  cannot 
use  that  particular  part  of  his  mental  body,  and  is 
incapable  of  rational  thought  on  that  subject.  This 
foul  thickened  mass  blocks  all  free  movement  either 
outward  or  inward;  it  prevents  him  on  the  one  hand 
from  seeing  accurately,  or  from  receiving  any  relia- 
ble new  impressions  on  the  matter  in  question,  and 
on  the  other  from  sending  out  any  clear  thought  with 
regard  to  it. 

These  diseased  spots  in  the  mental  body  are  un- 
fortunately also  centres  of  infection;  the  inability  to 
see  clearly  increases  and  spreads.  If  part  of  the 
man's  mental  body  is  already  stagnant,  the  other  parts 
are  likely  to  be  affected;  if  a  man  allows  himself  to 
have  a  prejudice  on  one  subject  he  will  probably 
soon  develope  prejudices  on  others,  because  the  healthy 
flow  of  mental  matter  has  been  checked  and  the  habit 
of  untruth  has  been  formed.  Religious  prejudice  is 
the  commonest  and  the  most  serious  of  all,  and  it 
completely  prevents  any  approach  to  rational  thought 
with  regard  to  the  subject.  Unfortunately  a  very 
large  number  of  people  have  the  whole  of  that  part 
of  their  mental  bodies  which  should  be  occupied  with 
religious  matters  inactive,  ossified  and  covered  with 
warts,  so  that  even  the  most  rudimentary  conception 
of  what  religion  really  is  remains  utterly  impossible 
for  them  until  a  catastrophic  change  has  taken  place. 

It  may  be  remembered  that  in  Man  Visible  and  In- 
visible drawings  were  given  of  the  astral  bodies  of 
men  of  the  devotional  and  scientific  types.     Variants 


THE  MENTAL  BODY  95 

of  these  with  which  we  frequently  meet  are  the  in- 
tuitional person  and  the  matter-of-fact  person.  The 
latter  has  generally  much  of  yellow  in  his  mental 
body,  and  his  various  bands  of  colour  are  usually 
regular  and  in  order.  He  has  far  less  emotion  and 
less  imagination  than  the  intuitional  man,  and  there- 
fore often  in  certain  ways  less  power  and  enthusiasm; 
but  on  the  other  hand  he  is  far  less  likely  to  make 
mistakes,  and  what  he  does  will  generally  be  well 
and  carefully  done.  In  the  vehicle  of  the  intuitional 
man  we  find  much  more  of  blue,  but  the  colours  are 
generally  vague  and  the  whole  body  ill-regulated. 
He  suffers  much  more  than  the  steadier  type,  but 
sometimes  through  that  suffering  he  is  able  to  make 
rapid  progress.  Of  course,  both  the  glow  and  enthu- 
siasm and  the  steadiness  and  regularity  have  their 
place  in  the  perfect  man ;  it  is  only  a  question  of  which 
is  acquired  first. 

Mystical  thought  and  the  presence  of  psychic  facul- 
ties are  indicated  by  colours  of  which  we  have  no 
equivalents  on  the  physical  plane.  When  a  man  be- 
gins to  develope  along  occult  lines,  the  whole  of  his 
mental  body  must  be  rapidly  purified  and  brought 
into  thorough  working  order,  for  every  part  of  it  will 
be  needed,  and  every  part  must  be  absolutely  at  its 
best  if  he  is  to  make  any  real  progress.  It  is  emi- 
nently necessary  that  he  should  be  able  to  make  strong 
and  clear  thought-forms,  and  in  addition  to  this  it 
is  a  great  help  and  comfort  to  him  if  he  is  able  to 
visualise  them  clearly.  The  two  acts  must  not  be 
confused;  one  man  may  be  able  to  make  a  stronger 
and  clearer  thought-form  than  another,  and  yet  not 
be  able  to  visualise  it  so  well.  The  formation  of  a 
thought  is  a  direct  act  of  the  will,  working  through 
the    mental    body;    the    visualisation    is    simply    the 


96  THE  INNER  LIFE 

power  to  see  clairvoyantly  the  thought-form  which 
he  has  made.  Let  him  think  strongly  of  any  object, 
and  the  image  of  it  is  there  in  the  mental  body — just 
as  much  there  whether  he  can  visualise  it  or  not. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  all  mental  work  done 
on  the  physical  plane  must  be  done  through  the 
physical  brain,  so  that  in  order  to  succeed  it  is  neces- 
sary not  only  to  develope  the  mental  body,  but  to  get 
the  physical  brain  into  order,  so  that  the  mental  body 
may  readily  work  through  it.  It  is  well  known  that 
certain  parts  of  the  brain  are  connected  with  certain 
qualities  in  the  man  and  with  his  power  to  think 
along  certain  lines,  and  all  these  must  be  brought  into 
order  and  duly  correlated  with  the  zones  in  the  mental 
body. 

Another  point,  the  greatest  of  all,  is  that  there  is 
another  connection  to  be  made  and  kept  active — the 
connection  between  the  ego  and  his  mental  body;  for 
he  is  the  force  behind,  which  makes  use  of  all  these 
qualities  and  powers.  In  order  that  we  may  think  of 
anything  we  must  first  remember  it;  in  order  that 
we  may  remember  it  we  must  have  paid  attention 
to  it;  and  the  paying  of  attention  is  the  descent  of 
the  ego  into  his  vehicles  in  order  to  look  out  through 
them.  Many  a  man  with  a  fine  mental  body  and  a 
good  brain  makes  little  use  of  them  because  he 
pays  little  attention  to  life — that  is  to  say,  because 
the  ego  is  putting  but  little  of  himself  down  into  these 
lower  planes,  and  so  the  vehicles  are  left  to  run  riot 
at  their  own  will.  I  have  written  elsewhere  of  the 
cure  for  this  state  of  affairs ;  put  very  briefly  it  comes 
to  this:  Give  the  ego  the  conditions  which  he  de- 
sires, and  he  will  promptly  put  himself  down  more 
fully,  to  take  advantage  of  them.  If  he  desires  to 
develope  affection,  give  him  the  opportunity  by  culti- 


A  NEGLECTED  POWER  97 

vating  affection  to  the  fullest  extent  on  these  lower 
planes,  and  at  once  the  ego  will  respond.  If  he  de- 
sires principally  wisdom,  then  endeavour  by  study  to 
make  yourself  wise  upon  the  physical  plane,  and  once 
more  the  ego  will  appreciate  your  effort  and  be  de- 
lighted to  co-operate.  Find  out  what  he  wants  and 
give  it  to  him,  and  you  will  have  no  reason  to  com- 
plain of  his  response. 


A  Neglected  Power 

People  who  have  not  made  a  special  study  of  the 
matter  never  understand  what  a  tremendous  power 
there  is  in  thought.  Steam-power,  water-power, 
these  are  real  to  them,  because  they  can  see  them  at 
work;  but  thought-power  is  vague  and  shadowy  and 
intangible  to  them.  Yet  those  who  have  taken  the 
trouble  to  look  into  the  subject  know  very  well  that 
one  is  just  as  real  as  the  other. 

This  is  true  in  two  senses— directly  and  indirectly. 
Everybody,  when  it  occurs  to  him,  recognises  the  in- 
direct action  of  thought,  for  it  is  obvious  that  a  man 
must  think  before  he  can  do  anything,  and  the 
thought  is  the  motive  power  of  his  act  just  as  the 
water  is  the  motive  power  of  the  mill.  But  people 
do  not  generally  know  that  thought  has  also  a  direct 
action  on  matter — that  whether  or  not  a  man  trans- 
lates his  thought  into  a  deed,  the  thought  itself  has 
already  produced  an  effect. 

Our  readers  are  already  aware  that  there  are  many 
kinds  of  matter  finer  than  those  which  are  visible 
to  physical  sight,  and  that  the  force  of  man's  thought 


98  THE  INNER  LIFE 

acts  directly  upon  some  of  these  and  sets  them  in  mo- 
tion. A  thought  shows  itself  as  a  vibration  in  the  men- 
tal body  of  man ;  tnat  vibration  is  communicated  to  ex- 
ternal matter,  and  an  effect  is  produced.  Thought 
therefore  is  itself  a  real  and  definite  power;  and  the 
point  of  vivid  interest  about  it  is  that  everyone  of  us 
possesses  this  power.  A  comparatively  small  number 
of  rich  men  have  concentrated  in  their  hands  the  steam- 
power  and  the  electric  power  of  the  world;  money 
is  needed  to  buy  its  use,  and  therefore  for  many  it  is 
unattainable.  But  here  is  a  power  which  is  already 
in  the  hands  of  everyone,  poor  and  rich,  young  and 
old  alike;  all  we  have  to  do  is  to  learn  to  use  it.  In- 
deed, we  are  all  of  us  using  it  to  some  extent  even 
now,  but  because  we  do  not  understand  it  we  often 
unconsciously  do  harm  with  it  instead  of  good,  both 
to  ourselves  and  to  others. 

Those  who  have  read  the  book  called  Thought- 
Forms  will  remember  how  it  is  there  explained  that 
a  thought  produces  two  principal  external  effects — a 
radiating  vibration  and  a  floating  form.  Let  us  see 
how  these  affect  the  thinker  himself,  and  how  they 
affect  others. 

The  first  point  to  remember  is  the  force  of  habit. 
If  we  accustom  our  mental  bodies  to  a  certain  type  of 
vibration  they  learn  to  reproduce  it  easily  and  readily. 
If  we  let  ourselves  think  a  certain  kind  of  thought 
to-day,  it  will  be  appreciably  easier  to  think  that 
same  thought  to-morrow.  If  a  man  allows  himself 
to  begin  to  think  evil  of  others,  it  soon  becomes  easy 
to  think  more  evil  of  them  and  difficult  to  think  any 
good  of  them.  Hence  arises  a  ridiculous  prejudice 
which  absolutely  blinds  the  man  to  the  good  points 
in  his  neighbours,  and  enormously  magnifies  the  evil 
in  them. 


A  NEGLECTED  POWER  99 

Then  his  thoughts  begin  to  stir  up  his  emotions; 
because  he  sees  only  the  evil  in  others  he  begins  to 
hate  them.  The  vibrations  of  mental  matter  excite 
those  of  the  denser  matter  called  astral,  just  as  the 
wind  disturbs  the  surface  of  the  sea.  We  all  know 
that  by  thinking  over  what  he  considers  his  wrongs 
a  man  can  easily  make  himself  angry,  though  we 
often  seem  to  forget  the  inevitable  corollary  that  by 
thinking  calmly  and  reasonably  a  man  can  prevent 
or  dismiss  anger. 

Still  another  reaction  upon  the  thinker  is  produced 
by  the  thought-form  which  he  generates.  If  the 
thought  be  aimed  at  someone  else,  the  form  flies  like 
a  missile  towards  that  person,  but  if  the  thought  be 
(as  is  so  often  the  case)  connected  chiefly  with  the 
thinker  himself,  the  form  remains  floating  near  him, 
ever  ready  to  react  upon  him  and  reproduce  itself 
— that  is  to  say,  to  stir  up  in  his  mind  the  same 
thought  once  more.  The  man  will  feel  as  though 
it  were  put  into  his  mind  from  without,  and  if  it 
happens  to  be  an  evil  thought  he  will  probably  think 
that  the  devil  is  tempting  him,  whereas  the  experi- 
ence is  nothing  but  the  mechanical  result  of  his  own 
previous  thought. 

Now  see  how  this  fragment  of  knowledge  can  be 
utilised.  Obviously  every  thought  or  emotion  pro- 
duces a  permanent  effect,  for  it  strengthens  or  weak- 
ens a  tendency;  furthermore,  it  is  constantly  re- 
acting upon  the  thinker.  It  is  clear  therefore  that 
we  must  exercise  the  greatest  care  as  to  what  thought 
or  emotion  we  permit  to  arise  within  ourselves.  We 
must  not  excuse  ourselves,  as  so  many  do,  by  saying 
that  undesirable  feelings  are  natural  under  certain 
conditions;  we  must  assert  our  prerogative  as  rulers 
of  this  kingdom  of  our  mind  and  emotions.     If  we 


100  THE  INNER  LIFE 

can  get  into  the  habit  of  evil  thought,  it  must  be 
equally  possible  to  get  into  the  habit  of  good  thought. 
We  can  accustom  ourselves  to  look  for  the  desirable 
rather  than  the  undesirable  qualities  in  the  people 
whom  we  meet;  and  it  will  surprise  us  to  find  how 
numerous  and  how  important  those  desirable  quali- 
ties are.  Thus  we  shall  come  to  like  these  people 
instead  of  disliking  them,  and  there  will  be  at  least 
a  possibility  that  we  may  do  them  something  ap- 
proaching to  justice  in  our  estimate  of  them. 

We  may  set  ourselves  definitely  as  a  useful  exer- 
cise to  think  good  and  kindly  thoughts,  and  if  we  do 
we  shall  very  soon  begin  to  perceive  the  result  of 
this  practice.  Our  minds  will  begin  to  work  more 
easily  along  the  grooves  of  admiration  and  appreci? 
ation  instead  of  along  those  of  suspicion  and  dis- 
paragement; and  when  for  the  moment  our  brains 
are  unoccupied,  the  thoughts  which  present  them- 
selves will  be  good  instead  of  bad,  because  they  will 
be  the  reaction  of  the  gracious  forms  with  which 
we  have  laboured  to  surround  ourselves.  "As  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he;"  and  it  is  obvious  that 
the  systematic  use  of  thought-power  will  make  life 
much  easier  and  pleasanter  for  us. 

Now  let  us  see  how  our  thought  affects  others. 
The  radiating  undulation,  like  many  other  vibra- 
tions in  nature,  tends  to  reproduce  itself.  Put  an 
object  in  front  of  a  fire,  and  presently  that  object 
becomes  hot;  why?  Because  the  radiations  of  rapid 
vibration  coming  from  the  incandescent  matter  in 
the  grate  have  stirred  the  molecules  of  the  object 
into  more  rapid  oscillation  also.  Just  in  the  same 
way  if  we  persistently  pour  the  undulation  of  kindly 
thought  upon  another,  it  must  in  time  awaken  a  simi- 
lar vibration   of  kindly  thought  in   him.     Thought- 


A  NEGLECTED  POWER  101 

forms  directed  towards  him  will  hover  about  him 
and  act  upon  him  for  good  when  opportunity  offers. 
Just  as  a  bad  thought  may  be  a  tempting  demon 
either  to  the  thinker  or  to  another,  so  a  good  thought 
may  be  a  veritable  guardian  angel,  encouraging 
virtue  and  repelling  vice. 

A  grumbling  and  fault-finding  attitude  towards 
others  is  unfortunately  sadly  common  at  the  present 
day,  and  those  who  adopt  it  never  seem  to  realise  the 
harm  that  they  are  doing.  If  we  study  its  result 
scientifically  we  shall  see  that  the  prevalent  habit 
of  malicious  gossip  is  nothing  short  of  wicked.  It 
does  not  matter  whether  there  is  or  is  not  any 
foundation  for  scandal;  in  either  case  it  cannot  but 
cause  harm.  Here  we  have  a  number  of  people  fix- 
ing their  minds  upon  some  supposed  evil  quality  in 
another,  and  drawing  to  it  the  attention  of  scores  of 
others  to  whom  such  an  idea  would  never  otherwise 
have  occurred. 

Suppose  they  accuse  their  victim  of  jealousy. 
Some  hundreds  of  people  at  once  begin  to  pour  upon 
this  unhappy  sufferer  streams  of  thought  suggesting 
the  idea  of  jealousy.  Is  it  not  obvious  that  if  the 
poor  man  has  any  tendency  towards  that  unpleasant 
quality,  it  cannot  but  be  greatly  intensified  by  such 
a  cataract?  And  if,  as  is  commonly  the  case,  there 
is  no  reason  whatever  for  the  spiteful  rumour,  those 
who  so  eagerly  spread  it  are  at  any  rate  doing  their 
best  to  create  in  the  man  the  very  vice  over  the 
imagined  presence  of  which  they  gloat  so  savagely. 

Think  of  your  friends  by  all  means,  but  think  of 
their  good  points,  not  only  because  that  is  a  much 
healthier  occupation  for  you,  but  because  by  doing 
so  you  strengthen  them.  When  you  are  reluctantly 
compelled   to    recognise   the   presence    of   some    evil 


102  THE  INNER  LIFE 

quality  in  a  friend,  take  especial  care  not  to  think 
of  it,  but  think  instead  of  the  opposite  virtue  which 
you  wish  him  to  develope.  If  he  happen  to  be  par- 
simonious or  lacking  in  affection,  carefully  avoid 
gossiping  about  this  defect  or  even  fixing  your 
thought  upon  it,  because  if  you  do,  the  vibration 
which  you  will  send  him  will  simply  make  matters 
worse.  Instead  of  that,  think  with  all  your  strength 
of  the  quality  which  he  needs,  flood  him  with  the  un- 
dulations of  generosity  and  love,  for  in  that  way  you 
will  really  help  your  brother. 

Use  your  thought-power  in  ways  such  as  these,  and 
you  will  become  a  veritable  centre  of  blessing  in  your 
corner  of  the  world.  But  remember  that  you  have 
only  a  limited  amount  of  this  force,  and  if  you  want 
to  have  enough  to  be  useful  you  must  not  waste  it. 

The  average  man  is  simply  a  centre  of  agitated 
vibration ;  he  is  constantly  in  a  condition  of  worry, 
of  trouble  about  something,  or  in  a  condition  of  deep 
depression,  or  else  he  is  unduly  excited  in  the  en- 
deavour to  grasp  something.  For  one  reason  or  an- 
other he  is  always  in  a  state  of  unnecessary  agita- 
tion, usually  about  the  merest  trifle.  This  means 
that  he  is  all  the  time  wasting  force,  frittering  away 
vainly  that  for  the  profitable  use  of  which  he  is  defi- 
nitely responsible — that  which  might  make  him 
healthier  and  happier. 

Another  way  in  which  he  wastes  a  vast  amount  of 
energy  is  by  unnecessary  argument;  he  is  always  try- 
ing to  make  somebody  else  agree  with  his  opinions. 
He  forgets  that  there  are  always  several  sides  to  any 
question,  whether  it  be  of  religion,  of  politics,  or  of 
expediency,  that  the  other  man  has  a  perfect  right  to 
his  own  point  of  view,  and  that  anyhow  it  does  not 
matter,  since  the  facts  of  the  case  will  remain  the 


A  NEGLECTED  POWER  103 

same,  whatever  either  of  them  may  think.  The 
great  majority  of  the  subjects  about  which  men 
argue  are  not  in  the  least  worth  the  trouble  of  dis- 
cussion, and  those  who  talk  most  loudly  and  most 
confidently  about  them  are  usually  precisely  those 
who  know  least. 

The  man  who  wishes  to  do  useful  work,  either 
for  himself  or  for  others,  by  means  of  thought- 
power,  must  conserve  his  energies;  he  must  be  calm 
and  philosophic;  he  must  consider  carefully  before 
he  speaks  or  acts.  But  let  no  one  doubt  that  the 
power  is  a  mighty  one,  that  any  one  who  will  take 
the  trouble  may  learn  how  to  use  it,  and  that  by  its 
use  each  one  of  us  may  make  much  progress  and 
may  do  much  good  to  the  world  around  him. 

You  should  understand  this  power  of  thought,  and 
the  duty  of  repressing  evil,  unkind  or  selfish  thoughts. 
Thoughts  will  produce  their  effect,  whether  we  wish 
it  or  not.  Each  time  you  control  them  it  makes  con- 
trol easier.  Sending  out  of  thoughts  to  others  is  as 
real  as  giving  money;  and  it  is  a  form  of  charity 
which  is  possible  for  the  poorest  of  men.  A  wise  man 
produces  his  results  intentionally.  To  radiate  de- 
pression is  wrong,  and  it  prevents  higher  thoughts 
from  coming  in.  It  causes  much  suffering  to  sensitive 
people,  and  is  responsible  for  much  of  the  terror  of 
children  at  night.  It  is  not  right  to  cloud  a  young 
life,  as  so  many  do,  by  allowing  bad  and  miserable 
thoughts  to  fall  upon  it.  Forget  your  depression, 
and  send  strengthening  thoughts  to  sick  people  in- 
stead. 

Your  thoughts  are  not  (as  you  might  suppose)  ex- 
clusively your  own  business,  for  your  vibrations 
affect  others.  Evil  thoughts  reach  much  farther 
than  evil  words,  but  they  cannot  affect  a  man  who  is 


104  THE  INNER  LIFE 

entirely  free  from  the  quality  which  they  carry. 
The  thought  of  the  desire  for  drink  could  not  enter 
the  body  of  a  purely  temperate  man,  for  example.  It 
would  strike  upon  his  astral  body,  but  it  could  not 
penetrate,  and  it  would  then  return  to  the  sender. 

The  will  can  be  trained  to  act  directly  upon 
physical  matter.  The  example  of  this  which  is  most 
likely  to  be  within  your  own  experience  is  that  a 
picture  which  is  much  used  for  purposes  of  medita- 
tion may  often  be  observed  to  change  in  expression; 
the  actual  physical  particles  are  unquestionably 
affected  by  the  power  of  the  strong  sustained  thought. 
Madame  Blavatsky  used  to  make  her  pupils  practise 
this,  telling  them  to  suspend  a  needle  by  a  silk 
thread,  and  then  learn  to  move  it  by  the  force  of  the 
will.  A  sculptor  also  uses  this  power  of  thought  in 
an  entirely  different  way.  When  he  sees  a  block  of 
marble  he  makes  a  strong  thought-form  of  the  statue 
which  he  can  carve  out  of  it.  Then  he  plants  this 
thought-form  inside  the  block  of  marble,  and  pro- 
ceeds to  chip  away  the  marble  which  lies  outside  the 
thought-form,  until  only  that  portion  of  it  which  is 
interpenetrated  by  it  remains. 

Make  it  a  practice  to  set  apart  a  little  time  each 
day  which  shall  be  devoted  to  formulating  good 
thoughts  about  other  people,  and  sending  them  to 
them.  It  is  capital  practice  for  you,  and  it  will  un- 
questionably do  good  to  your  patients  also. 


INTUITION  AND  IMPULSE  105 


Intuition  and  Impulse 

You  ask  how  you  are  to  distinguish  impulse  from 
intuition.  I  fully  appreciate  your  dilemma.  At  first 
it  is  difficult  for  the  student  to  do  this,  but  take  com- 
fort from  the  thought  that  the  difficulty  of  decision 
is  only  a  temporary  matter.  As  you  grow  you  will 
reach  a  stage  at  which  you  will  be  absolutely  certain 
with  regard  to  intuition,  for  the  distinction  between 
that  and  impulse  will  be  so  clear  that  mistake  will 
be  impossible. 

But  since  both  come  to  the  brain  from  within,  they 
seem  at  first  exactly  alike,  and  therefore  great  care 
is  necessary,  and  it  is  hard  to  arrive  at  a  decision. 
One  or  two  considerations  may  perhaps  help  you.  I 
have  heard  Mrs.  Besant  say  that  it  is  well  always  to 
wait  awhile  whenever  the  circumstances  permit  such 
a  course,  because  if  we  wait  a  little  an  impulse  usually 
grows  weaker,  while  an  intuition  is  unaffected  by  the 
passage  of  time.  Then  an  impulse  is  almost  always 
accompanied  by  excitement;  there  is  always  some- 
thing personal  about  it,  so  that  if  it  is  not  at  once 
obeyed — if  anything  crosses  it — there  arises  a  feel- 
ing of  resentment;  whereas  a  true  intuition,  though 
decided,  is  surrounded  by  a  sense  of  calm  strength. 
The  impulse  is  a  surging  of  the  astral  body;  the  in- 
tuition is  a  scrap  of  knowledge  from  the  ego  im- 
pressed upon  the  personality. 

Sometimes  the  sudden  impression  is  not  really  from 
within  at  all,  but  from  without;  a  message  or  sugges- 
tion from  some  one  on  a  higher  plane — most  com- 
monly some  passing  dead  person,  or  perhaps  a  de- 


106  THE  INNER  LIFE 

parted  relation.  It  is  well  to  treat  such  advice  pre- 
cisely as  though  it  were  given  on  the  physical  plane — 
to  take  it  if  it  commends  itself  to  our  reason,  and 
ignore  it  if  it  does  not;  for  a  person  is  not  neces- 
sarily wiser  than  we  merely  because  he  happens  to 
be  dead.  In  this  matter  as  in  all  others  we  must 
regulate  our  actions  by  strong,  sturdy  common-sense, 
and  not  rush  off  wildly  after  imaginations  and  dreams. 
At  this  stage  I  should  advise  you  always  to  follow 
reason  when  you  are  certain  of  the  premises  from 
which  you  reason.  You  will  learn  in  time  and  by  ex- 
perience whether  your  intuitions  can  invariably  be 
trusted.  The  mere  impulse  has  its  birth  in  the  astral 
body,  while  the  true  intuition  comes  directly  from 
the  higher  mental  plane,  or  sometimes  even  from  the 
buddhic.  Of  course  the  latter,  if  you  could  only  be 
sure  of  it,  might  be  followed  without  the  slightest 
hesitation,  but  in  this  transition  stage  through  which 
you  are  passing  one  is  compelled  to  take  a  certain 
amount  of  risk — either  that  of  sometimes  missing  a 
gleam  of  higher  truth  through  clinging  too  closely 
to  the  reason,  or  that  of  being  occasionally  misled 
by  mistaking  an  impulse  from  an  intuition.  Myself, 
I  have  so  deep-rooted  a  horror  of  this  last  possibility 
that  I  have  again  and  again  followed  reason  as 
against  intuition,  and  it  was  only  after  repeatedly 
finding  that  a  certain  type  of  intuition  was  always 
correct  that  I  allowed  myself  to  depend  fully  upon 
it.  You  too  will  no  doubt  pass  through  these  suc- 
cessive stages,  and  you  need  not  be  in  the  least 
troubled  about  it. 


THOUGHT-CENTRES  107 


Thought-Centres 

In  the  higher  levels  of  the  mental  plane  our 
thoughts  act  with  greater  force  because  we  have  the 
field  almost  to  ourselves.  We  have  not  many  other 
thoughts  to  contend  with  in  that  region.  All  people 
when  thinking  of  the  same  thing  tend  to  come  to  some 
extent  into  rapport  with  one  another.  Any  strong 
thought  anywhere  in  the  world  may  be  attracted  to 
you,  and  you  may  be  influenced  by  the  thinker  of  it. 
Strong  thought  acts  fairly  constantly,  and  is  more 
likely  to  act  in  connection  with  those  subjects  about 
which  comparatively  few  are  thinking,  because  in 
those  cases  the  vibrations  are  more  distinctive,  and 
have  freer  play.  Any  sudden  idea  or  vision  which 
comes  to  you  may  be  simply  the  thought-form  of 
some  person  who  is  keenly  interested  in  the  subject 
in  hand.  The  person  may  be  at  any  distance  from 
you,  though  it  is  true  that  physical  proximity  makes 
such  transference  easier. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  kind  of  psychometrisa- 
tion  of  a  thought-form.  Masses  of  thought  on  a 
given  subject  are  very  definite  things,  which  have  a 
place  in  space.  Thoughts  on  the  same  subject  and  of 
the  same  character  tend  to  aggregate.  For  many  sub- 
jects there  is  a  thought-centre,  a  definite  space  in  the 
atmosphere;  and  thoughts  on  one  of  these  subjects 
tend  to  gravitate  to  its  centre,  which  absorbs  any 
amount  of  ideas,  coherent  and  incoherent,  right  and 
wrong.  In  this  definite  centre  you  would  find  all  ths 
thought  about  a  given  subject  drawn  to  a  focus,  and 
might    then    psychometrise    the    different    thought 


108  THE  INNER  LIFE 

forms,  follow  them  to  their  thinkers,  and  acquire 
other  information  from  them. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  when  one  thinks  of  something 
a  little  difficult,  one  may  attract  the  thought  of  an- 
other person  who  has  studied  the  same  subject,  and 
even  the  person  himself  if  he  be  on  the  astral  plane. 
In  the  latter  case  the  person  may  be  either  conscious 
or  unconscious.  Plenty  of  people,  either  dead  or 
asleep,  do  try  to  help  others  along  their  particular 
lines;  any  one  of  such,  seeing  another  struggling  with 
some  kind  of  conception,  would  be  likely  to  go  and 
try  to  suggest  the  way  in  which  he  thinks  that  other 
man  ought  to  think  of  it.  It  does  not  follow,  of  course, 
that  his  ideas  would  be  correct. 

If  you  think  you  will  see  that  this  is  perfectly 
natural.  You  would  help  people  on  this  physical  plane 
simply  from  pure  good-nature.  So  also  after  death. 
You  feel  the  same  sympathies  without  a  physical  body ; 
and  though  your  idea  may  be  wrong  or  right,  you 
give  it.  I  do  not  know  of  any  method  that  is  open 
to  the  ordinary  student  for  ascertaining  the  exact 
source  of  an  idea  which  strikes  him.  One  has  to  de- 
velope  the  astral  and  mental  sight  in  order  to  see  the 
thought-form,  and  trace  from  whom  it  comes.  It  is 
connected  by  vibration  with  its  creator. 

Sometimes  such  an  idea  may  come  in  symbolic 
form;  the  serpent  and  elephant,  for  example,  are 
often  used  to  signify  wisdom.  There  are  many  sets 
of  symbolisms.  Each  ego  has  his  own  system, 
though  some  forms  seem  general  in  dreams.  It  is 
said  that  to  dream  of  water  signifies  trouble  of  some 
sort,  though  I  do  not  see  any  connection.  But  even 
though  there  be  no  real  connection,  an  ego  (or  for 
that  matter  some  other  entity  who  desires  to  com- 
municate) may  use  the  symbol  if  he  knows  that  it  is 


THOUGHT-CENTRES  109 

understood  by  the  personality.  Water  has  no  neces- 
sary relation  to  trouble,  but  an  ego  who  could  not 
convey  a  clear  message  to  his  personality,  and  knew 
that  it  held  that  peculiar  belief  about  water,  might 
very  likely  impress  such  a  dream  on  its  brain  when 
he  wished  to  warn  it  of  some  impending  misfortune. 
When  a  passing  thought  crosses  the  mind,  it  is 
usually  caused  by  suggestion.  The  power  or  thought 
and  the  multiplicity  of  thought-forms  are  tremen- 
dously great,  and  yet  they  are  but  little  understood 
and  taken  into  account. 

In  the  case  of  a  particular  idea  coming  into  the 
mind,  any  one  of  half-a-dozen  things  may  have  hap- 
pened. It  is  only  speculation  to  offer  suggestions  in 
any  particular  case  without  actual  knowledge  of  what 
took  place.  One  is  quite  likely  to  be  affected  by  one's 
own  thought-forms.  You  may  make  thought-forms 
about  a  subject  which  will  hover  about  you  and  per- 
sist proportionately  to  the  energy  you  put  into  them; 
and  these  often  react  upon  you  just  as  though  they 
were  new  suggestions  from  outside.  In  a  place  like 
Adyar  any  new-comer  will  find  a  mass  of  thought- 
forms  already  floating  about,  and  probably  he  may 
accept  some  of  these  ready-made  rather  than  set  to 
work  to  produce  new  ones  for  himself.  One  should 
take  up  thought-forms  with  caution.  I  have  seen  a 
man  take  up  thought-forms  and  be  converted  by 
them  when  they  were  quite  wrong,  and  he  himself 
had  before  been  perfectly  accurate  in  his  opinion. 
Sometimes,  however,  it  is  advantageous  to  try  to  put 
oneself  in  touch  with  a  thought-form  at  the  beginning 
of  study. 

There  are  upon  the  astral  plane  vast  numbers  of 
thought-forms  of  a  comparatively  permanent  nature, 
often  the  result  of  the  accumulative  work  of  many 


110  THE  INNER  LIFE 

generations  of  people.  Many  such  thought-forms 
refer  to  alleged  religious  history,  and  the  seeing  of 
them  by  sensitive  people  is  responsible  for  a  great 
many  quite  genuine  accounts  given  by  untrained  seers 
and  seeresses — such  for  example  as  Anne  Catherine 
Emmerich.  She  had  visions  in  the  most  perfect  detail 
of  the  events  of  the  passion  of  Jesus  exactly  as  it  is 
recorded  in  the  Gospels,  including  many  events  which 
we  know  never  really  occurred.  Yet  I  have  no  doubt 
that  the  statements  of  that  seeress  were  perfectly 
genuine;  she  was  not  labouring  under  an  hallucina- 
tion, but  only  under  a  mistake  as  to  the  nature  of 
what  she  saw. 

To  read  the  records  clearly  and  correctly  needs 
special  training ;  it  is  not  a  matter  of  faith  or  of  good- 
ness, but  of  a  special  kind  of  knowledge.  There  is 
nothing  whatever  to  show  that  the  saint  in  question 
had  this  particular  form  of  knowledge;  on  the  con- 
trary, she  probably  never  heard  of  such  records  at  all. 
She  would  therefore  most  likely  be  quite  incapable  of 
reading  a  record  clearly,  and  certainly,  if  she  did 
happen  to  see  one,  she  would  be  unable  to  distinguish 
it  from  any  other  kind  of  vision. 

In  all  probability  what  she  saw  was  a  set  of  such 
collective  thought-forms  as  we  have  described.  It  is 
well-known  to  all  investigators  that  any  great  histori- 
cal event  upon  which  much  is  supposed  to  depend  has 
been  constantly  thought  of  and  vividly  imaged  to  them- 
selves by  successive  generations  of  people.  Such 
scenes  would  be,  for  the  English,  the  signing  of 
Magna  Charta  by  King  John,  and  for  the  Americans 
the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Now  these  vivid  images  which  people  make  are  real 
things,  and  are  clearly  to  be  seen  by  anyone  who 
possesses    a    little    psychic    development.     They    are 


THOUGHT-CENTRES  111 

definite  forms  existing  in  the  first  place  upon  the 
mental  plane,  and  wherever  there  is  any  strong  emo- 
tion connected  with  them  they  are  brought  down  to 
the  astral  plane  and  materialised  there  in  astral 
matter.  They  are  also  perpetually  strengthened  by  all 
the  new  thoughts  which  are  ever  being  turned  upon 
them.  Naturally,  different  people  imagine  these 
scenes  differently,  and  the  eventual  result  is  often 
something  like  a  composite  photograph;  but  the  form 
in  which  such  an  imagination  was  originally  cast 
largely  influences  the  thought  of  all  sensitives  upon 
the  subject,  and  tends  to  make  them  image  it  as  others 
have  done. 

This  product  of  thought  (often,  be  it  observed,  of 
quite  ignorant  thought)  is  much  easier  to  see  than  the 
true  record,  for  while,  as  we  have  said,  the  latter  feat 
requires  training,  the  former  needs  nothing  but  a 
glimpse  of  the  mental  plane,  such  as  frequently  comes 
to  almost  all  pure  and  high-minded  ecstatics.  Indeed 
in  many  cases  it  does  not  need  even  this,  because  the 
thought-forms  exist  upon  the  astral  levels  as  well. 

Another  point  to  be  borne  in  mind  is  that  it  is  not 
in  the  least  necessary  for  the  creation  of  such  a 
thought-form  that  the  scenes  should  ever  have  had  any 
real  existence.  Few  scenes  from  real  history  have 
been  so  strongly  depicted  by  popular  fancy  in  England 
as  have  some  of  the  situations  from  Shakespeare's 
plays,  from  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and  from 
various  fairy  stories,  such  as  Cinderella  or  Aladdin's 
Lamp.  A  clairvoyant  obtaining  a  glimpse  of  one  of 
these  collective  thought-forms  might  very  easily  sup- 
pose that  he  had  come  across  the  real  foundation  of 
the  story;  but  since  he  knows  these  tales  to  be  fictions 
he  would  be  more  likely  to  think  that  he  had  simply 
dreamt  of  them. 


112  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Now,  ever  since  the  Christian  religion  materialised 
the  glorious  conceptions  originally  committed  to  its 
charge,  and  tried  to  represent  them  as  a  series  of 
events  in  a  human  life,  devout  souls  in  all  countries 
under  its  sway  have  been  striving  as  a  pious  exercise 
to  picture  the  supposed  events  as  vividly  as  possible. 
Consequently  we  are  here  provided  with  a  set  of 
thought-forms  of  quite  exceptional  strength  and 
prominence — a  set  which  can  hardly  fail  to  attract 
the  attention  of  any  ecstatic  the  bent  of  whose  mind 
is  at  all  in  their  direction.  No  doubt  they  were  seen 
by  Anne  Catherine  Emmerich,  and  by  many  another. 
But  when  such  clairvoyants  come,  in  the  course  of 
their  progress,  to  deal  with  the  realities  of  life,  they 
will  be  taught,  as  are  those  who  have  the  inestimable 
privilege  of  the  guidance  of  the  Masters  of  Wisdom, 
how  to  distinguish  between  the  result  of  devout  but 
ignorant  thought  and  the  imperishable  record  which 
is  the  true  memory  of  nature;  and  then  they  will  find 
that  these  scenes,  to  which  they  have  devoted  so  much 
attention,  were  but  symbols  of  truths  higher  and  wider 
and  grander  far  than  they  had  ever  dreamt,  even  in 
the  highest  flights  which  were  made  possible  for 
them  by  their  splendid  purity  and  piety. 


Thought  and  Elemental  Essence 

Elemental  essence  when  moulded  by  thought 
adopts  a  certain  colour — a  colour  which  is  expressive 
of  the  nature  of  the  thought  or  feeling.  Of  course  all 
that  this  really  means  is  that  the  essence  composing 
the  thought-form  is  for  the  time  compelled  to  vibrate 


THOUGHT  AND  ELEMENTAL  ESSENCE  113 

at  a  certain  definite  rate  by  the  thought  which  is  en- 
souling it.  The  evolution  of  the  elemental  essence  is 
to  learn  to  respond  to  all  possible  rates  of  undula- 
tion; when  therefore  a  thought  holds  it  for  a  time 
vibrating  at  a  certain  rate,  it  is  helped  to  this  extent, 
that  it  has  now  become  habituated  to  that  particular 
rate  of  oscillation,  so  that  next  time  it  comes  within 
reach  of  a  similar  one,  it  will  respond  to  it  much 
more  readily  than  before. 

Presently  those  atoms  of  essence,  having  passed  back 
again  into  the  general  mass,  will  be  caught  up  again 
by  some  other  thought,  and  will  then  have  to  swing 
at  some  totally  different  rate,  and  so  will  evolve  a 
little  further  by  acquiring  the  capacity  to  respond  to 
the  second  type  of  undulation.  So  by  slow  degrees  the 
thoughts,  not  only  of  man,  but  also  of  nature-spirits 
and  devas,  and  even  of  animals  so  far  as  they  do  think, 
are  evolving  the  elemental  essence  which  surrounds 
them — slowly  teaching  here  a  few  atoms,  and  there 
a  few  atoms,  to  respond  to  this  or  that  different  rate 
of  oscillation,  until  at  last  a  stage  will  be  reached 
when  all  the  particles  of  the  essence  shall  be  ready  to 
answer  at  any  moment  to  any  possible  rate  of  vibra- 
tion, and  that  will  be  the  completion  of  their  evolution. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  occultist  avoids  when 
possible  the  destruction  of  an  artificial  elemental, 
even  when  it  is  of  evil  character,  preferring  rather 
to  defend  himself  or  others  against  it  by  using  the 
protection  of  a  shell.  It  is  possible  to  dissipate  an 
artificial  elemental  instantly  by  an  exertion  of  will- 
power, just  as  it  is  possible  on  the  physical  plane  to 
kill  a  poisonous  snake  in  order  that  it  may  do  no  fur- 
ther harm;  but  neither  course  of  action  would  com- 
mend itself  to  an  occultist,  except  in  very  unusual  cir- 
cumstances. 


114  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Whether  the  thought  ensouling  it  is  evil  or  good 
makes  no  difference  whatever  to  the  essence;  all  that 
is  required  for  its  development  is  to  be  used  by 
thought  of  some  kind.  The  difference  between  the 
good  and  the  evil  would  be  shown  by  the  quality  of 
essence  which  it  affected,  the  evil  thought  or  desire 
needing  for  its  appropriate  expression  the  coarser  or 
denser  matter,  while  the  higher  thought  would  re- 
quire correspondingly  finer  and  more  rapidly  vibrat- 
ing matter  for  its  covering.  There  are  plenty  of  un- 
developed people  always  thinking  the  coarser  lower 
thoughts,  and  their  very  ignorance  and  grossness  are 
made  use  of  by  the  great  Law  as  evolutionary  forces 
to  help  on  a  certain  stage  of  the  work  that  is  to  be 
done.  It  is  for  us,  who  have  learnt  a  little  more  than 
they,  to  strive  ever  to  think  the  high  and  holy  thoughts 
which  cause  the  evolution  of  a  finer  kind  of  elemental 
matter,  and  so  to  work  in  a  field  where  at  present  the 
labourers  are  far  too  few. 


Jfcurilj  J^eciton 


IJsgcfytc  faculties 


FOURTH  SECTION 


Psychic  Powers 


^|HE  possession  of  psychic  powers  does  not 
necessarily  involve  high  moral  character, 
any  more  than  does  the  possession  of 
great  physical  strength.  It  is  quite  true 
that  the  man  who  enters  the  Path  of  Holi- 
ness will  presently  find  such  powers  developing  in 
him,  but  it  is  quite  possible  to  gain  many  of  the 
powers  without  the  holiness.  Powers  can  be  developed 
by  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble,  and  a  man  may 
learn  clairvoyance  or  mesmerism  just  as  he  may  learn 
to  play  the  piano,  if  he  is  willing  to  go  through  the 
necessary  hard  work.  It  is  far  better  and  safer  for 
the  vast  majority  of  people  to  work  at  the  develop- 
ment of  character,  to  try  to  fit  themselves  for  the  Path, 
and  to  leave  the  powers  to  unfold  in  due  course,  as 
they  certainly  will.  Some  people  are  in  too  much  of 
a  hurry  to  do  this,  and  set  themselves  to  force  the 
powers  sooner.  Well,  if  they  are  quite  certain  that 
they  desire  them  only  for  the  sake  of  helping  others, 
and  that  they  are  wise  enough  to  use  them  rightly,  it 
may  be  that  no  harm  will  come  of  it;  but  it  is  not 
easy  to  be  quite  certain  on  these  points,  and  the  slight- 
est deflection  from  the  right  line  will  mean  disaster. 
If  a  man  must  try  to  obtain  the  powers,  there  are 


118  THE  INNER  LIFE 

two  ways  open  to  him ;  of  course  there  are  many  more 
than  two  methods,  but  I  mean  that  they  all  fall  under 
two  heads — the  temporary  and  the  permanent.  The 
temporary  method  is  to  deaden  the  physical  senses  in 
some  way — actively  by  drugs,  by  self-hypnotisation,  or 
by  inducing  giddiness,  for  example,  or  passively  by  de- 
ing  mesmerised — so  that  the  astral  senses  may  come  to 
the  surface.  The  permanent  way  is  to  work  at  the  de- 
velopment of  the  ego,  so  that  he  may  be  able  to  con- 
trol the  lower  vehicles  and  use  them  as  he  wishes. 

It  is  somewhat  like  controlling  a  troublesome  horse. 
A  man  who  knows  nothing  of  riding  may  so  stupefy  a 
horse  with  drugs  that  he  can  sumehow  keep  on  his 
back,  but  that  will  not  in  the  least  enable  him  to  con- 
trol any  other  horse.  So  a  man  who  stupefies  his 
physical  body  may  use  his  astral  senses  to  some  ex- 
tent, but  that  will  in  no  way  help  him  to  manage  an- 
other physical  body  in  his  next  birth.  The  man  who 
will  take  the  far  greater  trouble  of  learning  to  ride 
properly  can  then  manage  any  horse,  and  the  man 
who  developes  his  ego  until  it  can  manage  one  set  of 
vehicles  will  be  able  to  control  any  others  that  are 
given  to  him  in  future  lives.  This  latter  course  means 
real  evolution;  the  other  does  not  necessarily  involve 
anything  of  the  sort.  It  does  not  follow  that  every- 
one who  is  on  the  Path  must  have  psychic  powers ; 
they  are  not  absolutely  necessary  until  a  certain  stage 
of  it  is  reached. 

Short  of  the  real  psychic  powers  there  are  various 
other  methods  by  which  men  endeavour  to  obtain  some 
of  the  same  results.  One  of  these,  for  example,  is  the 
repetition  of  invocations.  Charms  and  ceremonies 
may  sometimes  produce  an  effect ;  it  depends  upon  the 
way  in  which  they  are  performed.  I  have  seen  a  man 
who  was  able  to  answer  questions  in  rather  a  curious 


PSYCHIC  POWERS  119 

way;  he  first  entranced  himself  by  repeating  charms 
over  and  over  again,  and  his  invocations  not  only  in- 
fluenced himself,  but  also  attracted  nature-spirits  who 
went  for  the  desired  information,  obtained  it  and  put 
it  into  his  mind. 

Lord  Tennyson,  by  repeating  his  own  name  over 
and  over  again  and  drawing  his  consciousness  further 
and  further  within  himself,  raised  himself  into  touch 
with  the  ego,  and  then  all  this  life  seemed  to  him 
child's  play,  and  death  nothing  but  the  entrance  into 
a  greater  life. 

The  result  of  many  repetitions  may  often  be  to 
throw  oneself  into  the  trance  condition ;  but  this  is  not 
a  training  of  the  e~o.  Its  effects  last  at  most  only  for 
one  life,  whereas  the  powers  which  result  from  real 
spiritual  development  reappear  in  subsequent  bodies. 
The  man  who  entrances  himself  by  the  repetition  of 
words  or  charms  may  probably  return  as  a  medium 
or  at  least  a  mediumistic  person  in  his  next  life,  and 
it  must  be  remembered  that  mediumship  is  not  a 
power,  but  a  condition. 

Such  repetitions  may  easily  lead  on  to  the  coarser 
physical  mediumship  (by  which  I  mean  the  sitting  for 
materialisation  and  sensational  phenomena  of  all  sorts) 
which  is  frequently  injurious  to  health.  I  do  not  know 
that  mere  trance-speaking  injures  the  body  quite  so 
much,  though  considering  the  feebleness  of  the  plati- 
tudes which  are  usually  the  staple  of  the  communica- 
tions it  might  certainly  be  thought  likely  to  weaken 
the  mind ! 

Let  us  consider  what  it  is  that  is  required  from  a 
physical  medium.  When  an  entity  on  the  astral  plane, 
whether  it  be  a  dead  man  or  a  nature-spirit,  wants  to 
produce  any  result  on  dense  physical  matter — to  play 
on  a  piano  for  example,  to  cause  raps,  or  to  hold  a 


120  THE  INNER  LIFE 

pencil  in  order  to  write — he  needs  an  etheric  body 
through  which  to  work,  because  astral  matter  cannot 
act  directly  on  the  lower  forms  of  physical  matter, 
but  requires  the  etheric  matter  as  an  intermediary  to 
convey  the  vibrations  from  the  one  to  the  other — much 
in  the  same  way  as  a  fire  cannot  be  lighted  with  paper 
and  coals  alone ;  the  wood  is  needed  as  an  intermediary, 
otherwise  the  paper  will  all  burn  away  without  affect- 
ing the  coal. 

That  which  constitutes  a  man  a  physical  medium  is 
a  want  of  cohesion  between  the  etheric  and  the  dense 
parts  of  the  physical  vehicle,  so  that  an  astral  entity 
can  easily  withdraw  a  good  deal  of  the  man's  etheric 
body  and  use  it  for  his  own  purposes.  Of  course  he 
returns  it — in  fact  its  constant  tendency  is  to  flow 
back  to  the  medium,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  action 
of  the  materialised  form — but  still  the  frequent  with- 
drawal of  part  of  the  man's  body  in  this  way  cannot 
but  cause  great  disturbance  and  danger  to  his  health. 

The  etheric  double  is  the  vehicle  of  vitality,  the  life- 
principle,  which  is  perpetually  circulating  through 
our  bodies;  and  when  any  part  of  our  etheric  double 
is  withdrawn  that  life-circulation  is  checked  and  its 
current  broken.  A  terrible  drain  on  vitality  is  then 
set  up,  and  that  is  why  the  medium  is  so  often  in  a 
state  of  collapse  after  a  seance,  and  also  why  so  many 
mediums  in  the  long  run  become  drunkards,  having 
first  taken  to  stimulants  in  order  to  satisfy  the  dread- 
ful craving  for  support  which  is  caused  by  this  sudden 
loss  of  strength. 

It  can  never  under  any  circumstances  be  a  good 
thing  for  the  health  to  be  constantly  subjected  to  such 
a  drain  as  this,  even  though  in  some  cases  the  more  in- 
telligent and  careful  "spirits"  try  to  pour  strength 
into  their  medium  after  a  seance,  in  order  to  make  up 


PSYCHIC  POWERS  121 

for  the  less,  and  thus  support  him  without  absolute 
breakdown  for  a  much  longer  period  than  would 
otherwise  be  possible. 

In  cases  of  materialisation,  dense  physical  matter, 
probably  chiefly  in  the  form  of  gases  or  liquids,  is 
frequently  borrowed  from  the  body  of  the  medium, 
who  actually  decreases  temporarily  in  size  and  weight ; 
and  when  it  takes  place,  naturally  that  is  a  further 
source  of  serious  disturbance  to  all  the  functions. 

Of  the  mediums  with  whom  I  used  to  have  sittings 
thirty  years  ago  one  is  now  blind,  another  died  a  con- 
firmed drunkard,  and  a  third,  finding  himself  menaced 
by  apoplexy  and  paralysis,  escaped  with  his  life  only 
by  giving  up  seances  altogether. 

Another  form  of  materialisation  is  that  in  which 
the  astral  body  is  temporarily  solidified.  The  ordi- 
nary materialising  "spirit"  takes  his  material  from 
the  medium,  because  that,  being  already  specialised, 
is  more  easily  arranged  into  human  form,  and  more 
readily  condensed  and  moulded  than  free  ether  would 
be.  No  one  connected  with  any  school  of  white  magic 
would  think  it  right  to  interfere  with  the  etheric 
double  of  any  man  in  order  to  produce  a  materialisa- 
tion, nor  would  he  disturb  his  own  if  he  wished  to 
make  himself  visible  at  a  distance.  He  would  simply 
condense,  and  build  into  and  around  his  astral  body 
a  sufficient  quantity  of  the  surrounding  ether  to  ma- 
terialise it,  and  hold  it  in  that  form  by  an  effort  of 
will  as  long  as  he  needed  it. 

When  part  of  the  etheric  double  is  removed  from 
the  physical,  as  in  the  case  of  materialisation  of  the 
ordinary  kind,  a  connecting  current  is  visible  to  any 
one  capable  of  seeing  matter  in  the  etheric  condition; 
but  the  method  of  connection  with  the  astral  body  is 
entirely  different,  for  nothing  in  the  nature  of  a  cord 


122  THE  INNER  LIFE 

or  current  of  astral  matter  joins  the  two  forms.  Yet 
it  is  difficult  to  express  in  terms  of  this  plane  the 
exact  nature  of  the  exceeding  closeness  of  the  sym- 
pathy between  them;  perhaps  the  nearest  approxima- 
tion we  can  get  to  the  idea  is  that  of  two  instru- 
ments tuned  to  exactly  the  same  pitch,  so  that  what- 
ever note  is  struck  upon  one  of  them  instantly  evokes 
a  precisely  corresponding  sound  from  the  other. 

There  is  no  harm  in  using  will-power  to  cure  dis- 
eases, so  long  as  no  money  or  other  consideration  is 
taken  for  what  is  done.  There  are  several  methods; 
the  simplest  is  the  pouring  in  of  vitality.  Nature 
will  cure  most  diseases  if  the  man  can  be  strengthened 
and  supported  while  she  is  left  to  do  her  work.  This 
is  especially  true  of  the  various  nervous  diseases  which 
are  so  painfully  common  at  the  present  day.  The 
rest-cure,  which  is  often  advised  for  them,  is  quite 
the  best  thing  that  can  be  suggested,  but  recovery 
might  often  be  greatly  hastened  if  vitality  were 
poured  into  the  patient  in  addition.  Any  man  who 
has  surplus  vitality  may  direct  it  by  his  will  to  a  par- 
ticular person;  when  he  is  not  doing  that,  it  simply 
radiates  from  him  in  all  directions,  flowing  out 
principally  through  the  hands.  If  a  man  is  depleted 
of  strength  so  that  his  spleen  does  not  do  its  work 
properly,  the  pouring  in  of  specialised  vitality  is  often 
of  the  greatest  help  to  him  in  keeping  the  machinery 
of  the  body  going  until  he  is  able  to  manufacture  it 
for  himself. 

Many  minor  diseases  can  be  cured  merely  by  in- 
creasing the  circulation  of  the  vitality.  A  headache, 
for  example,  is  generally  due  either  to  a  slight  con- 
gestion of  blood,  or  to  a  similar  congestion  of  the  vital 
fluid;  in  either  case  a  clairvoyant  who  can  see  the  ob- 
struction may  deal  with  it  by  sending  a  strong  current 


PSYCHIC  POWERS  123 

through  the  head,  and  washing  away  the  congested 
matter.  A  man  who  cannot  see  can  also  produce  this 
result,  but  since  he  does  not  know  exactly  where  to 
direct  this  force  he  generally  wastes  a  great  deal  of  it. 

Sometimes  people  perform  cures  by  imposing  their 
own  magnetic  conditions  upon  others.  This  is  based 
on  the  theory  (which  is  quite  correct)  that  all  disease 
is  inharmony  of  some  sort,  and  that  if  perfect  har- 
mony can  be  restored  the  disease  will  disappear.  So 
in  this  case  the  person  who  wishes  to  effect  a  cure 
first  raises  his  own  vibrations  to  the  highest  degree 
which  is  possible  for  him,  fills  himself  with  thoughts 
of  love  and  health  and  harmony,  and  then  proceeds 
to  enfold  the  patient  within  his  aura,  the  idea  being 
that  his  own  powerful  vibrations  will  overbear  those 
of  the  patient,  and  gradually  bring  him  into  the  same 
harmonious  and  healthy  condition.  This  method  is 
often  effective,  but  we  must  remember  that  it  involves 
imposing  the  whole  of  the  personality  of  the  magne- 
tiser  upon  the  patient,  which  may  not  always  be  de- 
sirable for  either  of  the  persons  concerned. 

One  should  take  care  not  to  be  caught  or  entangled 
on  the  astral  plane,  as  a  man  easily  may  be,  and  that 
through  his  virtues  as  well  as  his  vices,  if  he  be  not 
exceedingly  cautious.  For  example,  it  is  possible  to 
affect  others  by  thought,  and  thus  obtain  whatever  is 
wanted  from  them,  and  the  temptation  of  this  power 
to  an  ordinary  man  would  be  overwhelming.  Again, 
you  could  easily  force  those  whom  you  love  out  of  a 
wrong  path  into  a  right  one  if  you  wished,  but  tiiis 
you  must  not  do;  you  may  only  persuade  and  argue. 
Here  again  is  a  temptation.  You  may  by  force  pre- 
vent your  friend  from  doing  wrong,  but  often  the 
weakening  effect  of  the  compulsion  on  his  mind  will 
do  him  more  harm  than  the  wrong-doing  from  which 


124  THE  INNER  LIFE 

you  save  him.  Drunkenness  can  be  cured  by  mesmer- 
ising the  man,  but  it  is  far  better  to  persuade  him 
gradually  to  conquer  the  weakness  for  himself,  since 
this  is  a  thing  which  he  will  have  to  do  in  some  life. 
It  is  said  that  in  some  cases  the  man  has  yielded 
himself  to  this  awful  habit  for  so  long  that  his  will- 
power is  entirely  in  abeyance,  and  he  actually  has  not 
the  strength  to  refrain;  and  it  is  claimed  that  for 
such  a  man  mesmerism  is  necessary,  for  it  is  the  only 
method  of  giving  him  an  opportunity  to  reassert  him- 
self as  a  human  being,  and  to  regain  some  sort  of  con- 
trol of  his  vehicles.  This  may  be  so,  and  I  can  well 
understand  the  desire  to  save  by  any  lawful  means 
the  soul  which  has  come  to  so  dire  a  pass;  yet  even 
then  I  would  counsel  the  greatest  care  in  the  use  of 
mesmerism,  and  in  the  choice  of  the  mesmerist. 

A  man  can  use  the  faculties  of  his  astral  body 
without  moving  away  from  his  physical  vehicle.  That 
is  called  the  possession  of  astral  powers  in  the  wak- 
ing state,  and  is  a  definite  stage  in  development. 
But  it  is  more  usual  for  the  astral  body  to  leave 
the  physical  when  it  is  intended  to  operate  or  ob- 
serve at  a  distance  from  the  physical  body. 

The  Indian  term  "sky-walker"  generally  refers 
only  to  one  who  is  able  thus  to  travel  in  his  astral 
body.  But  sometimes  also  it  means  levitation,  in 
which  the  physical  body  is  lifted  and  floats  in  the 
air.  In  India  this  happens  to  some  ascetics,  and 
some  of  the  greatest  of  Christian  saints  have  in  deep 
meditation  been  thus  raised  from  the  ground.  It  in- 
volves, however,  the  expenditure  of  a  good  deal  of 
force.  When  a  disciple  is  commissioned  to  undertaks 
some  special  work  for  humanity,  the  adepts  may 
give  to  him  for  the  purpose  some  extra  force,  but 
though  he  is  left  free  to  use  it  as  he  pleases;   he 


PSYCHIC  POWERS  125 

must  not  fritter  it  away  uselessly.  So  it  happens 
that  even  those  who  can  produce  these  strange 
effects  at  will  do  not  do  so  to  amuse  themselves  or 
others,  but  only  for  real  work.  It  would  be  quite 
possible  for  some  disciple  to  use  this  force  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  his  physical  body  through  the 
air  to  a  distant  place;  but  as  that  would  mean  a 
tremendous  expenditure  of  force,  it  is  not  likely 
that  he  would  so  use  it  unless  definitely  directed  to 
do  so. 

On  the  other  hand  there  have  been  cases  in  which 
such  powers  were  used — for  example,  to  save  a  man 
from  undeserved  suffering.  There  was  once  a  case 
in  which  a  young  man  was  accused  of  the  forgery  of 
an  important  document.  He  was  to  a  certain  extent 
technically  guilty,  although  quite  innocent  of  any 
evil  intention.  He  had  very  foolishly  imitated  a  cer- 
tain signature  upon  a  blank  sheet  of  paper,  and  then 
some  one  who  was  unfriendly  to  him  had  obtained 
possession  of  the  sheet  of  paper,  written  in  certain 
instructions  above  the  signature,  and  then  cleverly 
cut  the  paper  so  as  to  make  it  appear  to  be  a  letter 
conveying  orders.  The  accused  had  to  admit  that 
the  signature  was  in  his  writing;  but  his  account  of 
the  circumstances  under  which  it  was  written  was 
not  unnaturally  disbelieved,  and  it  seemed  impossi- 
ble for  him  to  escape  the  most  terrible  consequences. 
But  it  happened  that  one  of  our  Masters  was  called 
as  a  witness  to  testify  to  the  handwriting  of  the 
prisoner.  The  sheet  was  handed  to  Him  with  the 
question : 

"Do  you  recognise  that  handwriting  as  that  of  the 
prisoner?" 

The  Master  just  glanced  at  it,  and  instantly  re- 
turned it,  saying: 


126  THE  INNER  LIFE 

"Is  this  the  sheet  which  you  intended  to  give  me?" 
In  that  instant  the  sheet  had  become  an  absolute 
blank!  The  counsel  for  the  prosecution  of  course 
supposed  that  in  some  utterly  incomprehensible  way 
he  had  mislaid  the  paper;  but  for  want  of  it  the 
prosecution  fell  through,  and  so  the  young  man  was, 
saved. 


Clairvoyance 

The  possession  of  clairvoyant  power  is  a  very 
great  privilege  and  a  very  great  advantage,  and  if 
properly  and  sensibly  used  it  may  be  a  blessing  and  a 
help  to  its  fortunate  holder,  just  as  surely  as,  if  it  is 
misused,  it  may  often  be  a  hindrance  and  a  curse.  The 
principal  dangers  attendant  upon  it  arise  from  pride, 
ignorance,  and  impurity,  and  if  these  be  avoided,  as 
they  easily  may  be,  nothing  but  good  can  come  from  it. 

Pride  is  the  first  great  danger.  The  possession 
of  a  faculty  which,  though  it  is  the  heritage  of  the 
whole  human  race,  is  as  yet  manifested  only  very 
occasionally,  often  causes  the  ignorant  clairvoyant 
to  feel  himself  (or  still  more  frequently  herself) 
exalted  above  his  fellows,  chosen  by  the  Almighty 
for  some  mission  of  world-wide  importance,  dowered 
with  a  discernment  that  can  never  err,  selected  under 
angelic  guidance  to  be  the  founder  of  a  new  dispen- 
sation, and  so  on.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
there  are  always  plenty  of  sportive  and  mischievous 
entities  on  the  other  side  of  the  veil  who  are  ready 
and  even  anxious  to  foster  all  such  delusions,  to  ve- 


CLAIRVOYANCE  127 

fleet  and  embody  all  such  thoughts,  and  to  fill  what- 
ever role  of  archangel  or  spirit-guide  may  happen  to 
foe  suggested  to  them.  Unfortunately  it  is  so  fatally 
easy  to  persuade  the  average  man  that  he  really  is 
a  very  fine  fellow  at  bottom,  and  quite  worthy  to 
be  the  recipient  of  a  special  revelation,  even  though 
his  friends  have  through  blindness  or  prejudice 
somehow  failed  hitherto  to  appreciate  him. 

Another  danger,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  be- 
cause it  is  the  mother  of  all  others,  is  ignorance.  If 
the  clairvoyant  knows  anything  of  the  history  of  his 
subject,  if  he  at  all  understands  the  conditions  of 
those  other  planes  into  which  his  vision  is  penetrat- 
ing, he  cannot  of  course  suppose  himself  the  only 
person  who  was  ever  so  highly  favoured,  nor  can 
he  feel  with  self-complacent  certainty  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  him  to  mistake.  But  when  he  is,  as  so 
many  are,  in  the  densest  ignorance  as  to  history, 
conditions  and  everything  else,  he  is  liable  in  the  first 
place  to  make  all  kinds  of  mistakes  as  to  what  he 
sees,  and  secondly  to  be  the  easy  prey  of  all  sorts 
of  designing  and  deceptive  entities  from  the  astral 
plane.  He  has  no  criterion  by  which  to  judge  what 
he  sees,  or  thinks  he  sees,  no  test  to  apply  to  his 
visions  or  communications,  and  so  he  has  no  sense 
of  relative  proportion  or  the  fitness  of  things,  and 
he  magnifies  a  copy-book  maxim  into  a  fragment  of 
divine  wisdom,  a  platitude  of  the  most  ordinary 
type  into  an  angelic  message.  Then  again,  for  want 
of  common  knowledge  on  scientific  subjects  he  will 
often  utterly  misunderstand  what  his  faculties  en- 
able him  to  perceive,  and  he  will  in  consequence 
gravely  promulgate  the  grossest  absurdities. 

The  third  danger  is  that  of  impurity.  The  man 
who  is  pure  in  thought  and  life,  pure  in  intention 


128  THE  INNER  LIFE 

and  free  from  the  taint  of  selfishness,  is  by  that  very 
fact  guarded  from  the  influence  of  undesirable 
entities  from  other  planes.  There  is  in  him  nothing 
upon  which  they  can  play;  he  is  no  fit  medium  for 
them.  On  the  other  hand  all  good  influences  natur- 
ally surround  such  a  man,  and  hasten  to  use  him  as 
a  channel  through  which  they  may  act,  and  thus  a 
still  further  barrier  is  erected  about  him  against  ail 
which  is  mean  and  low  and  evil.  The  man  of  impure 
life  or  motive,  on  the  contrary,  inevitably  attracts 
to  himself  all  that  is  worst  in  the  invisible  world 
which  so  closely  surrounds  us;  he  responds  readily 
to  it,  while  it  will  be  hardly  possible  for  the  forces 
of  good  to  make  any  impression  upon  him. 

But  a  clairvoyant  who  will  bear  in  mind  all  these 
dangers,  and  strive  to  avoid  them,  who  will  take  the 
trouble  to  study  the  history  and  the  rationale  of 
clairvoyance,  who  will  see  to  it  that  his  heart  is 
humble  and  his  motives  are  pure — such  a  man  may 
assuredly  learn  very  much  from  these  powers  of 
which  he  finds  himself  in  possession,  and  may  make 
them  of  the  greatest  use  to  him  in  the  work  which 
he  has  to  do. 

Having  first  taken  good  heed  to  the  training  of  his 
character,  let  him  observe  and  note  down  carefully 
any  visions  which  come  to  him;  let  him  patiently 
endeavour  to  disentangle  the  core  of  truth  in  them 
from  the  various  accretions  and  exaggerations  which 
are  sure  at  first  to  be  almost  inextricably  confused 
with  them;  let  him  in  every  possible  way  test  and 
check  them  and  endeavour  to  ascertain  which  of 
them  are  reliable,  and  in  what  way  these  reliable 
ones  differ  from  others  which  have  proved  less  trust- 
worthy— and  he  will  very  soon  find  himself  evolving 
order  out  of  chaos,  and  learning  to  distinguish  what 


CLAIRVOYANCE  129 

he  can  trust  and  what  he  must  for  the  present  put 
aside  as  incomprehensible. 

He  will  probably  find  in  course  of  time  that  he 
gets  impressions,  whether  by  direct  sight  or  only  by 
feeling,  in  reference  to  the  various  people  with  whom 
he  comes  into  contact.  Once  more  the  careful  noting 
down  of  every  such  impression  as  soon  as  it  occurs, 
and  the  impartial  testing  and  checking  of  it  as  op- 
portunity offers,  will  soon  show  our  friend  how  far 
these  feelings  or  visions  are  to  be  relied  on;  and  as 
soon  as  he  finds  that  they  are  correct  and  depend- 
able he  has  made  a  very  great  advance,  for  he  is  in 
possession  of  a  power  which  enables  him  to  be  of  far 
more  use  to  those  among  whom  his  work  lies  than 
he  could  be  if  he  knew  only  as  much  about  them  as 
can  be  seen  by  the  ordinary  eye. 

If,  for  example,  his  sight  includes  the  auras  of 
those  around  him,  he  can  judge  from  what  it  shows 
him  how  best  to  deal  with  them,  how  to  bring  out 
their  latent  good  qualities,  how  to  strengthen  their 
weaknesses,  how  to  repress  what  is  undesirable  in 
their  characters.  Again,  his  power  may  often  enable 
him  to  observe  something  of  the  processes  of  nature, 
to  see  something  of  the  working  of  the  non-human 
evolutions  which  surround  us,  and  thus  to  acquire 
most  valuable  knowledge  on  all  kinds  of  recondite 
subjects.  If  he  happens  to  be  personally  acquainted 
with  some  clairvoyant  who  has  been  put  under  regu- 
lar training  he  has  of  course  a  great  advantage,  in 
that  he  can  without  difficulty  get  his  visions  ex- 
amined and  tested  by  one  upon  whom  he  can  rely. 

Generally  speaking,  then,  the  course  to  be  recom- 
mended to  the  untrained  clairvoyant  is  that  of  ex- 
ceeding patience  and  much  watchfulness;  but  with 
this  hope  ever  before  his  eyes,  that  assuredly  if  he 


130  THE  INNER  LIFE 

makes  use  of  the  talent  entrusted  to  him  it  cannot 
but  attract  the  favourable  notice  of  Those  who  are 
ever  watching  for  instruments  which  can  be  em- 
ployed in  the  great  work  of  evolution,  and  that  when 
the  right  time  comes  he  will  receive  the  training 
which  he  so  earnestly  desires,  and  will  thus  be  en- 
abled definitely  to  become  one  of  those  who  help 
the  world. 

Special  training  should  be  arranged  from  early 
childhood  for  clairvoyant  children.  The  modern 
system  of  education  tends  to  suppress  all  psychic 
faculties,  and  most  young  people  are  overstrained  by 
their  studies.  In  Greece  and  Rome  these  psychic 
children  were  promptly  isolated  as  vestal  virgins  or 
postulants  for  the  priesthood,  and  specially  trained. 
There  is  a  natural  tendency  in  the  present  day,  apart 
from  education,  to  repress  these  faculties.  The  best 
way  to  prevent  the  loss  of  these  to  the  world  is  to 
put  the  boys  into  some  sort  of  monastery  where  the 
monks  know  about  the  higher  life  and  try  to  live  it, 
for  family  life  is  not  suitable  for  this  development. 
Where  such  clairvoyance  appears  it  ought  to  be  en- 
couraged, for  many  additional  investigators  are 
wanted  for  the  Society's  work,  and  those  who  begin 
young  are  likely  to  adapt  themselves  to  it  most 
readily. 

People  who  are  psychic  by  birth  generally  use  the 
etheric  double  a  great  deal.  People  who  possess 
what  has  sometimes  been  called  "etheric  sight" — 
that  is,  sight  capable  of  observing  physical  matter  in 
a  state  of  exceedingly  fine  subdivision,  though  not 
yet  capable  of  discerning  the  subtler  matter  of  the 
astral  plane — frequently  see,  when  they  look  keenly 
at  any  exposed  portion  of  the  human  body,  such  as 
the  face  or  the  hand,  multitudes  of  tiny  forms,  such 


CLAIRVOYANCE  131 

as  dice,  stars,  and  double  pyramids.  These  belong 
neither  to  the  thought-plane  nor  to  the  astral,  but 
are  purely  physical,  though  of  exceeding  minuteness. 
They  are  simply  the  physical  emanation  from  the 
body,  which  is  always  taking  place — the  waste  mat- 
ter, consisting  largely  of  finely-divided  salts,  which 
is  constantly  being  thrown  out  in  this  manner.  The 
character  of  these  tiny  particles  varies  from  many 
causes.  Naturally  loss  of  health  often  alters  them 
entirely,  but  any  wave  of  emotion  will  affect  them 
to  a  greater  or  lesser  extent,  and  they  even  respond 
to  the  influence  of  any  definite  train  of  thought. 

Professor  Gates  is  reported  as  saying  (a)  that  the 
material  emanations  of  the  living  body  differ  accord- 
ing to  the  states  of  the  mind  as  well  as  the  con- 
ditions of  the  physical  health;  (b)  that  these  emana- 
tions can  be  tested  by  the  chemical  reactions  of  some 
salts  of  selenium;  (c)  that  these  reactions  are 
characterised  by  various  tints  or  colours  according  to 
the  nature  of  the  mental  impressions;  (d)  that  forty 
different  emotion-products,  as  he  calls  them,  have  al- 
ready been  obtained. 

People  sometimes  see  animated  particles  quivering 
with  intense  rapidity,  and  dashing  about  in  the  air 
before  them.  This  again  shows  the  possession  of 
much  increased  physical  power,  not  of  mental.  It  is 
unfortunately  only  too  common  for  the  person  who 
gains  for  the  first  time  a  glimpse  of  astral  or  even 
of  etheric  matter  to  jump  at  once  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  is  at  least  upon  the  mental  level,  if  not  upon 
the  nirvanic,  and  holds  in  his  hand  the  key  to  all  the 
mysteries  of  the  entire  solar  system.  All  that  will 
come  in  good  time,  and  these  grander  vistas  will  as- 
suredly open  before  him  one  day;  but  he  will  hasten 
the   coming    of   that    desirable    consummation   if   he 


132  THE  INNER  LIFE 

makes  sure  of  each  step  as  he  takes  it,  and  tries  fully 
to  understand  and  make  the  best  of  what  he  has,  be- 
fore desiring  more.  Those  who  begin  their  experi- 
ence with  nirvanic  vision  are  few  and  far  between; 
for  most  of  us,  progress  must  be  slow  and  steady, 
and  the  safest  motto  for  us  is  festina  lente. 

I  should  not  advise  anyone  to  allow  himself  to  be 
thrown  into  mesmeric  sleep  for  the  purpose  of  gain- 
ing clairvoyant  experiences.  The  domination  of  the 
will  by  that  of  another  produces  effects  that  few  peo- 
ple realise.  The  will  of  the  victim  becomes  weaker, 
and  is  more  liable  to  be  acted  upon  by  others.  In 
the  scheme  of  things  no  man  is  forced  to  do  any- 
thing; he  is  taught  by  receiving  always  the  result  of 
his  actions;  and  it  is  better  to  allow  clairvoyant 
powers  to  come  gradually  in  the  natural  course  of 
evolution,  rather  than  to  try  to  force  them  in  any 
way. 

We  must  not  always  assume  that  a  man  who  sees 
something  pertaining  to  higher  planes  is  necessarily 
becoming  clairvoyant.  By  clairvoyance,  for  example, 
we  may  undoubtedly  see  an  apparition,  but  on  the 
other  hand  there  are  various  other  ways  in  which  a 
man  may  see  or  suppose  himself  to  see  something 
which  to  him  would  be  exactly  the  same  as  an  appari- 
tion. 

The  apparition  of  a  dead  person  may  be  (a)  one's 
own  imagination,  (b)  a  thought-form  produced  by 
another  person,  (c)  or  by  the  person  seen,  (d)  an 
impersonation,  (e)  the  etheric  double  of  the  person, 
or  (/)  the  real  person  actually  there.  In  the  last 
case  one  of  three  things  must  have  happened — 
that  is,  supposing  that  the  apparition  is  a  dead  or 
sleeping  person  in  his  astral  body,  and  that  the  man 
who   sees   him   is   himself  in   his   physical   body   and 


CLAIRVOYANCE  133 

wide  awake.  Either  (a)  the  dead  man  has  mate- 
rialised himself,  in  which  case  of  course  he  is  for  the 
time  a  physical  object,  which  may  be  seen  by  any 
number  of  people  with  ordinary  physical  sight;  (o) 
the  dead  man  is  in  his  astral  body,  in  which  case  only 
those  possessing  astral  sight  can  perceive  him;  he 
has  probably  succeeded  by  some  special  effort  in 
temporarily  opening  that  sight  for  the  person  to 
whom  he  wishes  to  show  himself,  and  is  therefore 
most  likely  visible  to  that  one  person  only,  and  not  to 
any  others  who  may  happen  to  be  present;  or,  (c) 
the  dead  man  has  mesmerised  the  living,  so  as  to 
impose  upon  him  the  idea  that  he  sees  a  figure  which 
is  not  really  visible  to  him,  though  it  may  be  really 
present. 

If  the  apparition  be  an  etheric  double,  it  will  not 
stray  far  away  from  the  dense  body  to  which  it  be- 
longs or  used  to  belong.  An  unpractised  apparition 
— one  who  is  new  to  the  astral  plane — often  shows 
traces  of  the  habits  of  his  earth-life.  He  will  enter 
and  depart  by  a  door  or  a  window,  not  yet  realising 
that  he  can  pass  through  the  wall  just  as  easily.  I 
have  even  seen  one  squeeze  through  the  crack  of  a 
locked  door;  he  might  as  well  have  tried  the  key- 
hole! But  he  moves  as  he  has  been  accustomed  to 
move — as  he  thinks  of  himself  as  moving.  For  the 
same  reason  an  apparition  often  walks  upon  the 
earth,  when  he  might  just  as  well  float  through  the 
air. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  think  that  if  you  see  a  vision,  it 
must  necessarily  mean  something  for  you,  or  be 
specially  sent  to  you.  If  you  for  the  moment  become 
sensitive,  you  see  what  happens  to  be  there. 

Suppose  I  am  sitting  in  a  room,  and  a  curtain  is 
drawn  across  the  window,  so  that  the  street  outside 


134  THE  INNER  LIFE 

is  invisible  to  me.  Suppose  the  wind  lifts  the  cur- 
tain for  a  moment,  so  that  I  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
street,  I  shall  then  see  whatever  happens  to  be  pass- 
ing at  that  moment.  Let  us  imagine  that  I  see  a  little 
girl  in  a  red  cloak,  carrying  a  basket.  That  little 
girl  is  probably  going  about  her  own  business,  or  per- 
haps her  mother's;  should  I  not  be  very  foolish  if  I 
chose  to  fancy  that  she  had  been  sent  there  especially 
for  me  to  see,  and  began  to  worry  myself  as  to  what 
could  be  symbolised  by  the  red  cloak  and  the  basket? 
A  flash  of  clairvoyance  is  usually  just  the  accidental 
lifting  of  a  curtain,  and  generally  what  is  seen  has 
no  special  relation  to  the  seer.  There  may  occasion- 
ally be  instances  in  which  the  curtain  is  intentionally 
lifted  by  a  friend  because  something  of  personal  in- 
terest is  passing;  but  we  must  not  be  too  ready  to 
assume  that  that  is  the  case. 

Among  the  real  psychic  powers,  however,  which 
are  attained  by  slow  and  careful  self-development, 
there  are  some  which  are  of  very  great  interest. 
For  example,  for  one  who  can  function  freely  in  the 
mental  body  there  are  methods  of  getting  at  the  mean- 
ing of  a  book,  quite  apart  from  the  ordinary  process 
of  reading  it.  The  simplest  is  to  read  from  the  mind 
of  one  who  has  studied  it;  but  this  is  open  to  the  ob- 
jection that  one  gets  not  the  real  meaning  of  the  work 
but  that  student's  conception  of  the  meaning,  which 
may  be  by  no  means  the  same  thing.  A  second  plan 
is  to  examine  the  aura  of  the  book — a  phrase  which 
needs  a  little  explanation  for  those  not  practically 
acquainted  with  the  hidden  side  of  things. 

An  ancient  manuscript  stands  in  this  respect  in  a 
somewhat  different  position  from  a  modern  book.  If 
it  is  not  the  original  work  of  the  author  himself,  it 
has  at  any  rate  been  copied  word  by  word  by  some 


CLAIRVOYANCE  135 

person  of  a  certain  education  and  understanding, 
who  knew  the  subject  of  the  book,  and  had  his  own 
opinions  about  it.  It  must  be  remembered  that  copy- 
ing (done  usually  with  a  stylus)  is  almost  as  slow 
and  emphatic  as  engraving;  so  that  the  writer  in- 
evitably impresses  his  thought  strongly  on  his  handi- 
work. Any  manuscript,  therefore,  even  a  new  one, 
has  always  some  sort  of  thought-aura  about  it  which 
conveys  its  general  meaning,  or  rather  one  man's 
idea  of  its  meaning  and  his  estimate  of  its  value. 
Every  time  it  is  read  by  anyone  an  addition  is  made 
to  that  thought-aura,  and  if  it  be  carefully  studied 
the  addition  is  naturally  large  and  valuable. 

This  is  equally  true  of  a  printed  volume.  A  book 
which  has  passed  through  many  hands  has  an  aura 
which  is  usually  better  balanced  than  that  of  a  new 
one,  because  it  is  rounded  off  and  completed  by  the 
divergent  views  brought  to  it  by  its  many  readers; 
consequently  the  psychometrisation  of  such  a  book 
generally  yields  a  fairly  full  comprehension  of  its 
contents,  though  with  a  considerable  fringe  of 
opinions  not  expressed  in  the  book,  but  held  by  its 
various  readers. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  book  used  in  a  public  library 
is  not  infrequently  as  unpleasant  psychically  as  it 
usually  is  physically,  for  it  becomes  loaded  with  all 
kinds  of  mixed  magnetisms,  many  of  them  of  a  most 
unsavoury  character.  The  sensitive  person  will  do 
well  to  avoid  such  books,  or  if  necessity  compels  him 
to  use  them  he  will  be  wise  to  touch  them  as  little 
as  may  be,  and  rather  to  let  them  lie  upon  a  table  than 
to  hold  them  in  his  hand. 

Another  factor  to  be  remembered  with  regard  to 
such  books  is  that  a  volume  written  upon  a  special 
subject  is  most  likely  to  be  read  by  a  particular  type 


136  THE  INNER  LIFE 

of  person,  and  these  readers  leave  their  impress  upon 
the  aura  of  the  volume.  Thus  a  book  violently  advo- 
cating some  sectarian  religious  views  is  not  read  ex- 
cept by  persons  who  sympathise  with  its  narrowness, 
and  so  it  soon  developes  a  decidedly  unpleasant  aura; 
and  in  the  same  way  a  book  of  an  indecent  or  prurient 
nature  quickly  becomes  loathsome  beyond  description. 
Old  books  containing  magical  formulas  are  often  for 
this  reason  most  uncomfortable  neighbours.  Even 
the  language  in  which  a  book  is  printed  indirectly 
affects  its  aura,  by  limiting  its  readers  largely  to 
men  of  a  certain  nationality,  and  so  by  degrees  en- 
dowing it  with  the  more  prominent  characteristics  of 
that  nationality. 

In  the  case  of  a  printed  book  there  is  no  original 
copyist,  so  that  at  the  beginning  of  its  career  it 
usually  carries  nothing  but  disjointed  fragments  of 
the  thought  of  the  binder  and  bookseller.  Few  read- 
ers at  the  present  day  seem  to  study  so  thoughtfully 
and  thoroughly  as  did  the  men  of  old,  and  for  that 
reason  the  thought-forms  connected  with  a  modern 
book  are  rarely  so  precise  and  clear-cut  as  those 
which  surround  the  manuscripts  of  the  past. 

The  third  method  of  reading  requires  some  higher 
powers,  in  order  to  go  behind  the  book  or  manu- 
script altogether  and  get  at  the  mind  of  its  author. 
If  the  book  is  in  some  foreign  language,  its  subject 
entirely  unknown,  and  there  is  no  aura  around  it  to 
give  any  helpful  suggestion,  the  only  way  is  to  follow 
back  its  history  to  see  from  what  it  was  copied  (or 
set  up  in  type,  as  the  case  may  be)  and  so  to  trace 
out  the  line  of  its  descent  until  one  reaches  its  author. 
If  the  subject  of  the  work  be  known,  a  less  tedious 
method  is  to  psychometrise  that  subject,  get  into  the 
general  current  of  thought  about  it,  and  so  find  the 


CLAIRVOYANCE  137 

particular  writer  required,  and  see  what  he  thinks. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  all  the  ideas  connected  with 
a  given  subject  may  be  said  to  be  local — to  be  con- 
centrated round  a  certain  point  in  space — so  that  by 
mentally  visiting  that  point  one  can  come  into  touch 
with  all  the  converging  streams  of  thought  about 
that  subject,  though  these  are  linked  by  millions  of 
lines  witn  all  sorts  of  other  subjects. 

Another  interesting  power  is  that  of  magnification. 
There  are  two  methods  of  magnification  which  may 
be  used  in  connection  with  the  clairvoyant  faculty. 
One  is  simply  an  intensification  of  ordinary  sight.  It 
is  obvious  that  when  in  common  life  we  see  anything, 
an  impact  of  some  sort  is  made  upon  the  retina — upon 
its  physical  rods  and  cones.  The  effects  there  pro- 
duced, or  the  vibrations  set  up,  are  transmitted,  in 
some  way  by  no  means  thoroughly  understood,  by  the 
optic  nerve  to  the  grey  matter  of  the  brain.  Clearly, 
before  the  true  man  within  can  become  conscious  of 
what  is  seen,  these  impressions  made  upon  the  physi- 
cal brain-matter  must  be  transmitted  from  that  to  the 
etheric  matter,  from  that  in  turn  to  the  astral,  and 
from  that  to  the  mental — these  different  degrees  of 
matter  being,  as  it  were,  stations  on  a  telegraph-wire. 

One  method  of  magnification  is  to  tap  this  tele- 
graph-wire at  an  intermediate  station — to  receive  the 
impression  upon  the  etheric  matter  of  the  retina  in- 
stead of  upon  the  physical  rods  and  cones,  and  to 
transfer  the  impression  received  directly  to  the  etheric 
part  of  the  brain.  By  an  effort  of  will  the  attention 
can  be  focussed  in  only  a  few  of  the  etheric  particles, 
or  even  in  one  of  them,  and  in  that  way  a  similarity 
of  size  can  be  attained  between  the  organ  employed 
and  some  minute  object  which  is  to  be  observed. 

A    method    more    commonly    used,    but    requiring 


138  THE  INNER  LIFE 

somewhat  higher  development,  is  to  employ  the  special 
faculty  of  the  centre  between  the  eyebrows.  From 
the  central  portion  of  that  can  be  projected  what  we 
may  call  a  tiny  microscope,  having  for  its  lens  only 
one  atom.  In  this  way  again  we  produce  an  organ 
commensurate  in  size  with  the  minute  objects  to  be 
observed.  The  atom  employed  may  be  either  physi- 
cal, astral  or  mental,  but  whichever  it  is  it  needs  a 
special  preparation.  All  its  spirillse  must  be  opened 
up  and  brought  into  full  working  order,  so  that  it 
is  just  as  it  will  be  in  the  seventh  round  of  our  chain. 
This  power  belongs  to  the  causal  body,  so  if  an 
atom  of  lower  level  be  used  as  an  eye-piece  a  system 
of  reflecting  counterparts  must  be  introduced.  The 
atom  can  be  adjusted  to  any  subplane,  so  that  any 
required  degree  of  magnification  can  be  applied  in 
order  to  suit  the  object  which  is  being  examined.  A 
further  extension  of  the  same  power  enables  the 
operator  to  focus  his  own  consciousness  in  that  lens 
through  which  he  looks,  and  then  to  project  it  to  dis- 
tant points.  The  same  power,  by  a  different  ar- 
rangement, can  be  used  for  diminishing  purposes 
when  one  wishes  to  view  as  a  whole  something  far 
too  large  to  be  taken  in  at  once  by  ordinary  vision. 


The  Mystic  Chord 

Questions  have  often  been  asked  as  to  the  method 
by  which  a  person  at  a  distance  of  some  thousands  of 
miles  can  be  instantly  found  by  a  trained  clairvoyant. 
Apparently  this  remains  somewhat  of  a  mystery  to 
many,  so  I  will  endeavour  to  give  an  explanation  of 


THE  MYSTIC  CHORD  139 

the  plan  commonly  adopted,  though  it  is  not  easy  to 
put  it  quite  plainly.  A  clear  expression  of  super- 
physical  facts  cannot  be  achieved  in  physical  words, 
for  the  latter  are  always  to  some  extent  misleading 
even  when  they  seem  most  illuminative. 

Man's  various  forces  and  qualities,  manifesting  in 
his  bodies  as  vibrations,  send  out  for  each  vehicle 
what  may  be  called  a  keynote.  Take  his  astral  body 
as  an  example.  From  the  number  of  different  vibra- 
tions which  are  habitual  to  that  astral  body  there 
emerges  a  sort  of  average  tone,  which  we  may  call  the 
keynote  of  the  man  on  the  astral  plane.  It  is  ob- 
viously conceivable  that  there  may  be  a  considerable 
number  of  ordinary  men  whose  astral  keynote  is 
practically  the  same,  so  that  this  alone  would  not 
suffice  to  distinguish  them  with  certainty.  But  there 
is  a  similar  average  tone  for  each  man's  mental  body, 
for  his  causal  body,  and  even  for  the  etheric  part  of 
his  physical  body;  and  there  have  never  yet  been 
found  two  persons  whose  keynotes  were  identical  at 
all  these  levels,  so  as  to  make  exactly  the  same  chord 
when  struck  simultaneously. 

Thus  the  chord  of  each  man  is  unique,  and  it  fur- 
nishes a  means  by  which  he  can  always  be  distin- 
guished from  the  rest  of  the  world.  Among  millions 
of  primitive  savages  there  may  possibly  be  cases 
where  development  is  as  yet  so  slight  that  the  chords 
are  scarcely  clear  enough  for  the  differences  between 
them  to  be  observed,  but  with  any  of  the  higher 
races  there  is  never  the  least  difficulty,  nor  is  there 
any  risk  of  confusion. 

Whether  the  man  be  sleeping  or  waking,  living  or 
dead,  his  chord  remains  the  same,  and  he  can  always 
be  found  by  it.  How  can  this  be  so,  it  may  be  asked, 
when  he  is  resting  in  the  heaven-world,  and  has  there- 


140  THE  INNER  LIFE 

fore  no  astral  or  etheric  body  to  emit  the  character- 
istic sounds?  So  long  as  the  causal  body  itself  re- 
mains, it  has  always  attached  to  it  its  permanent 
atoms,  one  belonging  to  each  of  the  planes,  and  there- 
fore, wherever  he  goes,  the  man  in  his  causal  body 
carries  his  chord  with  him,  for  the  single  atom  is 
quite  sufficient  to  give  out  the  distinctive  sound. 

The  trained  seer,  who  is  able  to  sense  the  chord, 
attunes  his  own  vehicles  for  the  moment  exactly  to 
its  notes,  and  then  by  an  effort  of  will  sends  forth  its 
sound.  Wherever  in  the  three  worlds  that  man  who 
is  sought  may  be,  this  evokes  an  instantaneous  re- 
sponse from  him.  If  he  be  living  in  the  physical  body, 
it  is  quite  possible  that  in  that  lower  vehicle  he  may 
be  conscious  only  of  a  slight  shock,  and  may  not  in 
the  least  know  what  has  caused  it.  But  his  causal 
body  lights  up  instantly;  it  leaps  up  like  a  great 
flame,  and  this  response  is  at  once  visible  to  the  seer, 
so  that  by  that  one  action  the  man  is  found,  and  a 
magnetic  line  of  communication  is  established.  The 
seer  can  use  that  line  as  a  kind  of  telescope,  or  if  he 
prefers  he  can  send  his  consciousness  flashing  along 
it  with  the  speed  of  light,  and  see  from  the  other  end 
of  it,  as  it  were. 

The  combination  of  sounds  which  will  produce  a 
man's  chord  is  his  true  occult  name;  and  it  is  in  this 
sense  that  it  has  been  said  that  when  a  man's  true 
name  is  called  he  instantly  replies,  wherever  he  may 
be.  Some  vague  tradition  of  this  is  probably  at  the 
back  of  the  idea  so  widely  spread  among  savage  na- 
tions, that  a  man's  real  name  is  a  part  of  him,  and 
must  be  carefully  concealed,  because  one  who  knows 
it  has  a  certain  power  over  him,  and  can  work  magic 
upon  him.  Thus  also  it  is  said  that  the  man's  true 
name  is  changed  at  each  initiation,  since  each  such 


THE  MYSTIC  CHORD  141 

ceremony  is  at  once  the  official  recognition  and  the 
fulfilment  of  a  progress  by  which  he  has,  as  it  were, 
raised  himself  into  a  higher  key,  putting  an  addi- 
tional strain  upon  the  strings  of  his  instrument,  and 
evoking  from  it  far  grander  music,  so  that  thence- 
forward his  chord  must  be  sounded  differently.  This 
name  of  the  man  must  not  be  confused  with  the  hid- 
den name  of  the  Augoeides,  for  that  is  the  chord  of 
the  three  principles  of  the  ego,  produced  by  the  vi- 
brations of  the  atmic,  buddhic  and  mental  atoms,  and 
the  monad  behind  them. 

In  order  to  avoid  such  confusion  we  must  keep 
clearly  in  mind  the  distinction  between  two  mani- 
festations of  the  man  at  different  levels.  The  corres- 
pondence between  these  two  manifestations  is  so 
close  that  we  may  almost  consider  the  lower  as  the 
repetition  of  the  higher.  The  ego  is  triple,  consist- 
ing of  atma,  buddhi,  manas,  three  constituents  each 
existing  on  its  own  plane — the  atma  on  the  nirvanic, 
the  buddhi  on  the  buddhic,  and  the  manas  on  the  high- 
est level  of  the  mental.  This  ego  inhabits  a  causal 
body,  a  vehicle  built  of  the  matter  of  the  lowest  of 
the  three  planes  to  which  he  belongs.  He  then  puts 
himself  further  down  into  manifestation,  and  takes 
three  lower  vehicles,  the  mental,  astral  and  physical 
bodies.  His  chord  in  this  lower  manifestation  is  that 
which  we  have  been  describing,  and  consists  of  his 
own  note  and  those  of  the  three  lower  vehicles. 

Just  as  the  ego  is  triple,  so  is  the  monad,  and  this 
also  has  its  three  constituents,  each  existing  on  its  own 
plane;  but  in  this  case  the  three  planes  are  the  first, 
second  and  third  of  our  system,  and  the  nirvanic  is  the 
lowest  of  them  instead  of  the  highest.  But  on  that  nir- 
vanic level  it  takes  to  itself  a  manifestation,  and  we  call 
it  the  monad  in  its  atmic  vehicle,  or  sometimes  the  triple 


142  THE  INNER  LIFE 

atma  or  triple  spirit;  and  this  is  for  it  what  the  causal 
body  is  for  the  ego.  Just  as  the  ego  takes  on  three 
lower  bodies  (mental,  astral,  physical),  the  first  of 
which  (the  mental)  is  on  the  lower  part  of  his  own 
plane,  and  the  lowest  (the  physical)  two  planes  below, 
so  the  monad  takes  on  three  lower  manifestations 
(which  we  commonly  call  atma,  buddhi,  manas),  the 
first  of  which  is  on  the  lower  part  of  his  plane,  and 
the  lowest  two  planes  below  that.  It  will  thus  be  seen 
that  the  causal  body  is  to  the  monad  what  the  physical 
body  is  to  the  ego.  If  we  think  of  the  ego  as  the  soul 
of  the  physical  body,  we  may  consider  the  monad  as 
the  soul  of  the  ego  in  turn.  Thus  the  chord  of  the 
Augoeides  (the  glorified  ego  in  his  causal  body)  con- 
sists of  the  note  of  the  monad,  with  those  of  its  three 
manifestations,  atma,  buddhi,  manas. 

It  must  be  understood  that  the  chord  cannot  be  ac- 
curately considered  as  sound  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  use  that  word  on  this  plane.  It  has  been  suggested 
to  me  that  an  analogy  which  is  in  some  respects  better 
is  that  of  the  combination  of  lines  in  a  spectrum.  Each 
of  the  elements  whose  spectrum  is  known  to  us  is  in- 
stantly recognisable  by  it,  in  whatever  star  it  may  ap- 
pear, no  matter  how  great  the  distance  may  be — so 
long  as  the  lines  are  bright  enough  to  be  seen  at  all. 
But  the  chord  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  is  not 
actually  either  heard  or  seen;  it  is  received  by  a  com- 
plex perception  which  requires  the  practically  simul- 
taneous activity  of  the  consciousness  in  the  causal  body 
and  in  all  the  lower  vehicles. 

Even  with  regard  to  ordinary  astral  perception  it  is 
misleading  (though  practically  unavoidable)  to  speak 
of  "hearing"  and  "seeing."  These  terms  connote  for 
us  the  idea  of  certain  sense-organs  which  receive  im- 
pressions of  a  well-defined  type.    To  see  implies  the 


THE  MYSTIC  CHORD  143 

possession  of  an  eye,  to  hear  implies  the  existence  of 
an  ear.  But  no  such  sense-organs  are  to  be  found  on 
the  astral  plane.  It  is  true  that  the  astral  body  is  an 
exact  counterpart  of  the  physical,  and  that  it  conse- 
quently shows  eyes  and  ears,  nose  and  mouth,  hands 
and  feet,  just  as  the  latter  does.  But  when  function- 
ing in  the  astral  body  we  do  not  walk  upon  the  astral 
counterparts  of  our  physical  feet,  nor  do  we  see  and 
hear  with  the  counterparts  of  our  physical  eyes  and 
ears. 

Each  particle  in  an  astral  body  is  capable  of  re- 
ceiving a  certain  set  of  vibrations — those  belonging  to 
its  own  level,  and  those  only.  If  we  divide  all  astral 
vibrations  into  seven  sets,  just  like  seven  octaves  in 
music,  each  octave  will  correspond  to  a  sub-plane,  and 
only  a  particle  in  the  astral  body  which  is  built  of  mat- 
ter belonging  to  that  subplane  can  respond  to  the  vibra- 
tions of  that  octave.  So  "to  be  upon  a  certain  sub- 
plane  in  the  astral"  is  to  have  developed  the  sensitive- 
ness of  only  those  particles  in  one's  astral  body  which 
belong  to  that  subplane,  so  that  one  can  perceive  the 
matter  and  the  inhabitants  of  that  sub-plane  only.  To 
have  perfect  vision  upon  the  astral  plane  means  to 
have  developed  sensitiveness  in  all  particles  of  the 
astral  body,  so  that  all  the  sub-planes  are  simultane- 
ously visible. 

Even  though  a  man  has  developed  the  particles  of 
one  sub-plane  only,  if  those  are  fully  developed  he  will 
have  on  that  sub-plane  a  power  of  perception  equiva- 
lent to  all  of  our  physical  senses.  If  he  perceives  an 
object  at  all,  he  will  in  that  one  act  of  perception  re- 
ceive from  it  an  impression  which  conveys  all  that  we 
learn  down  here  through  those  various  channels  which 
we  call  the  senses;  he  will  simultaneously  see,  hear 
and  feel  it.     The  instantaneous  perception  which  be- 


144  THE  INNER  LIFE 

longs  to  higher  planes  is  still  further  removed  from  the 
clumsy  and  partial  action  of  the  physical  senses. 

In  order  to  see  how  the  chord  helps  the  clairvoyant 
to  find  any  given  person,  it  must  also  be  understood 
that  the  vibrations  which  cause  it  are  communicated  by 
the  man  to  any  object  which  is  for  some  time  in  close 
contact  with  him,  and  therefore  permeated  by  his  mag- 
netism. A  lock  of  his  hair,  an  article  of  clothing  which 
he  has  worn,  a  letter  which  he  has  written — any  of 
these  is  sufficient  to  give  the  chord  to  one  who  knows 
how  to  perceive  it.  It  can  also  be  obtained  very  readily 
from  a  photograph,  which  seems  more  curious,  since 
the  photograph  need  not  have  been  in  direct  contact 
with  the  person  whom  it  represents.  Even  untrained 
clairvoyants,  who  have  no  scientific  knowledge  of  the 
subject,  instinctively  recognize  the  necessity  of  bring- 
ing themselves  en  rapport  with  those  whom  they  seek 
by  means  of  some  such  objects. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  the  seer  to  hold  the  letter  in 
his  hand  while  examining  the  case,  or  even  to  have  it 
near  him.  Having  once  held  the  letter  and  sensed  the 
chord,  he  is  able  to  remember  it  and  reproduce  it,  just 
as  any  one  with  a  good  memory  might  remember  a  face 
after  seeing  it  once.  Some  such  link  as  this  is  always 
necessary  to  find  a  person  previously  unknown.  We 
had  recently  a  case  of  a  man  who  had  died  somewhere 
in  the  Congo  district,  but  as  no  photograph  of  him  was 
sent  by  the  friend  who  wrote  about  him,  it  was  neces- 
sary first  to  seek  that  friend  (somewhere  in  Scandi- 
navia, I  think)  and  make  a  contact  in  a  roundabout 
way  through  him. 

There  are,  however,  other  methods  of  finding  people 
at  a  distance.  One  which  is  most  effective  requires 
higher  development  than  that  just  described.  A  man 
who  is  able  to  raise  his  consciousness  to  the  atomic 


HOW  PAST  LIVES  ARE  SEEN  145 

level  of  the  buddhic  plane  there  finds  himself  abso- 
lutely in  union  with  all  his  fellowmen — and  therefore 
of  course  among  the  rest  with  the  person  whom  he 
seeks.  He  draws  his  consciousness  up  into  this  unity 
along  his  own  line,  and  he  has  only  to  put  himself 
out  again  along  the  line  of  that  other  person  in  order 
to  find  him.  There  are  always  various  ways  of  exer- 
cising clairvoyance,  and  each  student  employs  that 
which  comes  most  naturally  to  him.  If  he  has  not 
fully  studied  his  subject,  he  often  thinks  his  own 
method  the  only  one  possible,  but  wider  knowledge 
soon  disabuses  him  of  that  idea. 


How  Past  Lives  are  Seen 

As  a  series  of  past  lives  of  enthralling  interest  has 
recently  been  published  in  The  Theosophist,  many  en- 
quiries have  been  received  as  to  the  exact  method  by 
which  the  record  of  such  lives  is  read  by  the  investi- 
gators. It  is  not  easy  to  explain  the  matter  satis- 
factorily to  those  who  have  not  themselves  the  power 
to  see  them,  but  some  attempt  at  a  description  of  the 
process  may  at  least  help  students  on  the  way  towards 
comprehension. 

To  begin  with,  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  explain 
what  the  record  is  which  is  to  be  read.  A  suggestion 
leading  towards  an  idea  of  it  may  perhaps  be  obtained 
by  imagining  a  room  with  a  huge  pier-glass  at  one  end. 
Everything  which  took  place  in  that  room  would  be 
reflected  in  that  mirror.  If  we  further  suppose  that 
mirror  to  be  endowed  with  the  properties  of  a  kind  of 


146  THE  INNER  LIFE 

perpetual  cinematograph,  so  that  it  records  all  which 
it  reflects,  and  can  afterwards  under  certain  circum- 
stances be  made  to  reproduce  it,  we  have  advanced  one 
stage  towards  understanding  how  the  record  presents 
itself.  But  we  must  add  to  our  conception  qualities 
which  no  mirror  ever  possessed — the  power  to  repro- 
duce all  sounds  as  a  phonograph  does,  and  also  to 
reflect  and  reproduce  thoughts  and  feelings. 

Then  we  must  further  try  to  understand  what  the 
reflection  in  a  mirror  really  is.  If  two  persons  stand 
in  relation  to  a  mirror  so  that  each  sees  in  it  not  him- 
self but  the  other,  it  is  obvious  that  the  same  area  of 
glass  is  reflecting  the  two  images.  Therefore  if  we 
suppose  the  glass  to  retain  permanently  every  image 
which  has  ever  been  cast  upon  it  (perhaps  it  actually 
does!)  it  is  again  clear  that  the  same  part  of  the  glass 
must  be  simultaneously  recording  those  two  images. 
Move  up  and  down  and  from  side  to  side,  and  you  will 
soon  convince  yourself  that  every  particle  of  glass  must 
be  simultaneously  recording  every  part  of  every  object 
in  the  room,  and  that  what  you  happen  to  see  in  it  de- 
pends upon  the  position  of  your  eye.  Hence  it  also  fol- 
lows that  no  two  people  can  ever  see  at  the  same  mo- 
ment exactly  the  same  reflection  in  a  mirror,  any  more 
than  two  people  can  see  the  same  rainbow,  because  two 
physical  eyes  cannot  simultaneously  occupy  exactly  the 
same  point  in  space. 

What  we  have  supposed  to  happen  with  regard  to 
the  particles  of  our  mirror  does  really  happen  with 
regard  to  every  particle  of  every  substance.  Every 
stone  by  the  roadside  contains  an  indelible  record  of 
everything  that  has  ever  passed  it,  but  this  record 
cannot  (so  far  as  we  yet  know)  be  recovered  from 
it  so  as  to  be  visible  to  the  ordinary  physical  senses, 
though  the  more  developed  sense  of  the  psychome- 
trist  perceives  it  without  difficulty. 


HOW  PAST  LIVES  ARE  SEEN  147 

How  is  it  possible,  men  ask,  for  an  inanimate  par- 
ticle to  register  and  reproduce  impressions?  The  an- 
swer is  that  the  particle  is  not  inanimate,  and  that  the 
life  which  ensouls  it  is  part  of  the  Divine  Life.  In- 
deed, another  way  in  which  one  may  attempt  to  de- 
scribe the  record  is  to  say  that  it  is  the  memory  of  the 
Logos  Himself,  and  that  each  particle  is  somehow  in 
touch  with  that  part  of  that  memory  which  includes 
the  events  which  have  taken  place  in  its  neighbour- 
hood, or  what  we  may  call  within  sight  of  it.  It  is 
probable  that  what  we  call  our  memory  is  nothing  but 
a  similar  power  of  coming  into  touch  (though  often 
very  imperfectly)  with  that  part  of  His  memory  which 
refers  to  events  which  we  happen  to  have  seen  or 
known. 

So  we  might  say  that  every  man  carries  about  with 
him  on  the  physical  plane  two  memories  of  anything 
which  he  has  seen — his  brain-memory,  which  is  often 
imperfect  or  inaccurate,  and  the  memory  enshrined  in 
any  unchanged  particles  of  his  body  or  of  the  clothes 
that  he  wears,  which  is  always  perfect  and  accurate, 
but  is  available  only  for  those  who  have  learnt  how  to 
read  it.  Remember  also  that  the  brain-memory  may 
be  inaccurate,  not  only  because  it  is  itself  imperfect, 
but  because  the  original  observation  may  have  been 
defective.  Also  that  it  may  have  been  coloured  by 
prejudice:  we  see,  to  a  large  extent,  what  we  wish  to 
see,  and  we  can  remember  an  event  only  as  it  appeared 
to  us,  though  we  may  have  seen  it  partially  or  wrongly. 
But  from  all  these  defects  the  record  is  entirely  free. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  man's  physical  body  can  have 
neither  a  memory  nor  a  record  of  a  past  incarnation 
in  which  it  did  not  participate;  and  the  same  is  true 
of  his  astral  and  mental  bodies,  since  all  these  vehicles 
are  new  for  each  new  incarnation.    This  at  once  shows 


> 


148  THE  INNER  LIFE 

us  that  the  lowest  level  at  which  we  can  hope  to  get 
really  reliable  information  about  past  lives  is  that  of 
the  causal  body,  for  nothing  below  that  can  give  us 
first-hand  evidence.  In  those  previous  lives  the  ego  in 
his  causal  body  was  present — at  least  a  certain  small 
part  of  him  was — and  so  he  is  an  actual  witness; 
whereas  all  lower  vehicles  were  not  witnesses,  and  can 
only  report  what  they  have  received  from  him.  When 
we  recollect  how  imperfect  is  the  communication  be- 
tween the  ego  and  the  personality  in  the  ordinary  man, 
we  shall  at  once  see  ho'w  entirely  unreliable  such 
second,  third,  or  fourth-hand  testimony  is  likely  to  be. 
One  may  sometimes  obtain  from  the  astral  or  mental 
bodies  isolated  pictures  of  events  in  a  man's  past  life, 
but  not  a  sequential  and  coherent  account  of  it;  and 
even  those  pictures  are  but  reflections  from  the  causal 
body,  and  probably  very  dim  and  blurred  reflections. 

Therefore  to  read  past  lives  with  accuracy  the  first 
thing  necessary  is  to  develope  the  faculties  of  the 
causal  body.  Turning  those  faculties  upon  the  causal 
body  of  the  man  to  be  examined,  we  have  before  us  the 
same  two  possibilities  as  in  the  case  of  the  physical 
man.  We  can  take  the  ego's  own  memory  of  what 
happened,  or  we  can  as  it  were  psychometrise  him  and 
see  for  ourselves  the  experiences  through  which  he  has 
passed.  The  latter  method  is  the  safer,  for  even  the 
ego,  since  he  has  seen  these  things  through  a  past  per- 
sonality, may  have  imperfect  or  prejudiced  impres- 
sions of  them. 

This  then  is  the  mechanism  of  the  ordinary  method 
of  investigating  past  lives — to  use  the  faculties  of  one's 
own  causal  body,  and  by  its  means  to  psychometrise 
the  causal  body  of  the  subject.  The  thing  could  be  dene 
at  lower  levels  by  psychometrisation  of  the  permanent 


HOW  PAST  LIVES  ARE  SEEN  149 

atoms,  but  as  this  would  be  a  much  more  difficult  feat 
than  the  unfolding  of  the  senses  of  the  causal  body  it 
is  not  at  all  likely  ever  to  be  attempted  successfully. 
Another  method  (which,  however,  requires  much 
higher  development)  is  to  use  the  buddhic  faculties — 
to  become  absolutely  one  with  the  ego  under  investi- 
gation, and  read  his  experiences  as  though  they  were 
one's  own — from  within  instead  of  from  without. 
Eoth  of  these  methods  have  been  employed  by  those 
who  prepared  the  series  of  lives  which  appear  in  The 
Theosophist,  and  the  investigators  have  also  had  the 
advantage  of  the  intelligent  co-operation  of  the  ego 
whose  incarnations  are  described. 

The  physical  presence  of  the  subject  whose  lives  are 
being  read  is  an  advantage,  but  not  a  necessity;  he  is 
useful  if  he  can  keep  his  vehicles  perfectly  calm,  but 
if  he  becomes  excited  he  spoils  everything. 

The  surroundings  are  not  specially  important,  but 
quiet  is  essential,  as  the  physical  brain  must  be  calm 
if  impressions  are  to  be  brought  through  clearly. 
Everything  which  comes  down  to  the  physical  level 
from  the  causal  body  must  pass  through  the  mental 
and  the  astral  vehicles,  and  if  either  of  these  is  dis- 
turbed it  reflects  imperfectly,  just  as  the  least  rip- 
pling of  the  surface  of  a  lake  will  break  up  or  dis- 
tort the  images  of  the  trees  or  houses  upon  its  banks. 
It  is  necessary  also  to  eradicate  absolutely  all  preju- 
dices, otherwise  they  will  produce  the  effect  of  stained 
glass;  they  will  colour  everything  which  is  seen 
through  them,  and  so  give  a  false  impression. 

In  looking  at  past  lives  it  has  always  been  our 
custom  to  retain  full  physical  consciousness,  so  as  to 
be  able  to  make  a  note  of  everything  while  it  is  being 
observed.  This  is  found  to  be  a  much  safer  method 
than  to  leave  the  physical  body  during  the  observa- 


150  THE  INNER  LIFE 

tions,  and  then  trust  to  memory  for  their  reproduc- 
tion. There  is  however  a  stage  at  which  this  latter 
plan  is  the  only  one  available,  when  the  student, 
though  able  to  use  the  causal  body,  can  do  so  only 
while  the  physical  vehicle  is  asleep. 

The  identification  of  the  various  characters  en- 
countered in  these  glimpses  of  the  past  sometimes  pre- 
sents a  little  difficulty,  for  naturally  egos  change 
considerably  in  the  course  of  twenty  thousand  years 
or  so.  Fortunately,  with  a  little  practice  it  is  possi- 
ble to  pass  the  record  in  review  as  rapidly  or  as 
slowly  as  may  be  desired ;  so  when  there  is  any  doubt 
as  to  an  identification  we  always  adopt  the  plan  of 
running  quickly  along  the  line  of  lives  of  the  ego 
under  observation,  until  we  trace  him  to  the  present 
day.  Some  investigators,  when  they  see  an  ejo  in 
some  remote  life,  at  once  feel  an  intuition  as  to  his 
present  personality;  but  though  such  a  flash  of  in- 
tuition may  often  be  right,  it  may  certainly  also 
sometimes  be  wrong,  and  the  more  laborious  method 
is  the  only  one  which  is  thoroughly  reliable. 

There  are  cases  in  which  even  after  many  thou- 
sands of  years  the  egos  of  ordinary  people  are  in- 
stantly recognisable;  but  that  does  not  speak  par- 
ticularly well  for  them,  because  it  means  that  during 
all  that  time  they  have  made  but  little  progress.  To 
try  to  recognise  twenty  thousand  years  ago  some  one 
whom  one  knows  at  the  present  day  is  rather  like 
meeting  as  an  adult  some  one  whom  one  knew  long 
ago  as  a  little  child.  In  some  cases  recognition  is 
possible;  in  other  cases  the  change  has  been  too 
great.  Those  who  have  since  become  Masters  of  the 
Wisdom  are  often  instantly  recognisable,  even  thou- 
sands of  years  ago,  but  that  is  for  a  very  different 
reason.     When  the  lower  vehicles  are  already  fully 


HOW  PAST  LIVES  ARE  SEEN  151 

in  harmony  with  the  ego,  they  form  themselves  in 
the  likeness  of  the  Augoeides,  and  so  change  very 
little  from  life  to  life.  In  the  same  way  when  the 
ego  himself  is  becoming  a  perfect  reflection  of  the 
monad,  he  also  changes  but  little,  but  gradually 
grows;  and  so  he  is  readily  recognisable. 

In  examining  a  past  life  the  easiest  way  of  all 
would  be  to  let  the  record  drift  past  us  at  its  natural 
rate,  but  that  would  mean  a  day's  work  to  look  up 
the  events  of  each  day,  and  a  lifetime  spent  upon 
each  incarnation.  As  has  been  said,  it  is  possible  to 
accelerate  or  retard  the  passage  of  events,  so  that  a 
period  of  thousands  of  years  may  be  run  through 
rapidly,  or  on  the  other  hand  any  particular  picture 
may  be  held  as  long  as  is  desired,  so  that  it  may  be 
examined  in  detail.  The  acceleration  or  retardation 
may  perhaps  be  compared  to  the  hastening  or  slack- 
ening of  the  movement  of  a  panorama;  a  little  prac- 
tice gives  the  power  to  do  this  at  will,  but  as  in  the 
case  of  the  panorama,  the  whole  record  is  really 
there  all  the  time. 

What  I  have  described  as  the  unrolling  of  the 
record  rapidly  or  slowly  at  will  is  in  reality  a  move- 
ment not  of  the  record,  but  of  the  consciousness  of 
the  seer.  But  the  impression  which  it  gives  is 
exactly  as  I  have  stated  it.  The  records  may  be  said 
to  lie  upon  one  another  in  layers,  the  more  recent  on 
the  top  and  the  older  ones  behind.  Yet  even  this 
simile  is  misleading,  because  it  inevitably  suggests 
the  idea  of  thickness,  whereas  these  records  occupy 
no  more  space  than  does  the  reflection  on  the  surface 
of  a  mirror.  When  the  consciousness  passes  through 
them,  it  does  not  really  move  in  space  at  all ;  it  rather 
puts  on  itself,  as  a  kind  of  cloak,  one  or  other  of  the 
layers  of  the  record,  and  in  doing  so  it  finds  itself  in 
the  midst  of  the  action  of  the  story. 


!52  THE  INNER  LIFE 

One  of  the  most  tiresome  tasks  connected  with 
this  branch  of  enquiry  is  the  determination  of  exact 
dates.  In  fact,  some  investigators  frankly  decline  to 
undertake  it,  saying  that  it  is  not  worth  the  trouble, 
and  that  a  round  number  is  sufficient  for  all  practi- 
cal purposes.  Probably  it  is;  yet  there  is  a  feeling 
of  satisfaction  in  getting  even  details  as  accurate  as 
possible,  even  at  the  cost  of  tedious  counting  up  to 
very  high  numbers.  Our  plan  is  of  course  to  estab- 
lish certain  fixed  points  and  then  use  those  as  a  basis 
for  further  calculation. 

One  such  fixed  point  is  the  date  9,564  B.C.,  when  the 
sinking  of  Poseidonis  took  place.  Another  is  the 
date  75,025  B.C.,  for  the  commencement  of  the  great 
previous  catastrophe.  In  the  course  of  the  investi- 
gation of  the  lives  of  Alcyone  we  have  thus  estab- 
lished a  number  of  points,  up  to  the  date  of  22,6^2 
B.C.,  and  as  those  lives  were  worked  backwards,  and 
the  intervals  were  therefore  counted  one  by  one  and 
not  all  at  once,  the  scheme  was  not  too  insufferably 
tedious,  as  it  certainly  would  be  with  very  large  num- 
bers. In  certain  cases  astronomical  means  are  also 
employed.  A  description  of  these  different  methods 
will  be  found  in  my  book  on  Clairvoyance. 

It  is  on  the  whole  somewhat  easier  to  read  lives 
forwards  than  backwards,  because  in  that  case  we  are 
working  with  the  natural  flow  of  time  instead  of 
against  it.  So  the  usual  plan  is  to  run  rapidly  to 
some  selected  point  in  the  past,  and  then  work  slowly 
forwards  from  that.  It  must  be  remembered  that  at 
first  sight  it  is  rarely  possible  to  estimate  accurately 
the  relative  importance  of  the  minor  events  of  a  life, 
so  we  often  skim  over  it  first,  to  see  from  what  actions 
or  occurrences  the  really  important  changes  flow,  and 
<;hen  go  back  and  describe  those  more  in  detail.     If 


HOW  PAST  LIVES  ARE  SEEN  153 

the  investigator  himself  happens  to  be  one  of  the 
characters  in  the  life  which  he  is  examining,  there 
opens  before  him  the  interesting  alternative  of  actu- 
ally putting  himself  back  into  that  old  personality, 
and  feeling  over  again  just  what  he  felt  in  that 
ancient  time.  Eut  in  that  case  he  sees  everything 
exactly  as  he  saw  it  then,  and  knows  no  more  than 
he  knew  then. 

Few  of  those  who  read  the  life-stories,  which  are 
often  somewhat  meagre  outlines,  will  have  any  con- 
ception of  the  amount  of  labour  which  has  been  be- 
stowed upon  them — of  the  hours  of  work  which  have 
sometimes  been  given  to  the  full  comprehension  of 
some  trifling  detail,  so  that  the  picture  finally  pre- 
sented may  be  as  nearly  a  true  one  as  is  possible. 
At  least  our  readers  may  be  sure  that  no  pains  have 
been  spared  to  ensure  accuracy,  though  this  is  often 
no  easy  task  when  we  are  dealing  with  conditions 
and  modes  of  thought  as  entirely  different  from  our 
own  as  though  they  belonged  to  another  planet. 

The  languages  employed  are  almost  always  unin- 
telligible to  the  investigator,  but  as  the  thoughts 
behind  the  words  lie  open  before  him  that  matters 
little.  On  several  occasions  those  who  were  doing 
the  work  have  copied  down  public  inscriptions  which 
they  could  not  understand,  and  have  afterwards  had 
them  translated  on  the  physical  plane  by  someone  to 
whom  the  ancient  language  was  familiar. 

A  vast  amount  of  work  is  represented  by  the  sets 
of  lives  which  are  now  appearing;  may  that  labour 
bring  its  fruit  in  a  more  vivid  realisation  of  the 
mighty  civilisations  of  the  past  and  a  clearer  com- 
prehension of  the  working  of  the  laws  of  karma  and 
reincarnation.  Since  the  first  set  of  lives  which  ap- 
peared have  culminated  in  the  initiation  of  the  hero 


154  THE  INNER   LIFE 

in  his  present  incarnation,  they  are  surely  a  valuable 
study  for  those  whose  aspiration  is  to  become  the 
pupils  of  a  Master  of  the  Wisdom,  for  their  own 
progress  should  be  the  more  rapid  when  they  have 
learnt  how  a  brother  has  attained  the  goal  towards 
which  they  are  striving.  This  progress  has  been 
made  the  more  easy  for  them  because  that  brother 
has  taken  the  trouble  to  record  for  us  in  that  most 
admirable  little  book  At  the  Feet  of  the  Master  the 
teachings  which  led  him  to  that  goal. 

About  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  those  who  are  at 
present  members  of  the  Theosophical  Society  are  the 
prominent  characters  in  the  drama  which  lies  before 
the  readers  of  The  Theosophist;  and  it  is  deeply  in- 
teresting to  note  how  those  who  in  the  past  have  often 
been  linked  by  the  ties  of  blood-relationship,  though 
born  this  time  in  countries  thousands  of  miles  apart, 
are  yet  brought  together  by  their  common  interest  in 
Theosophical  study,  and  bound  to  one  another  more 
closely  by  their  love  for  the  Masters  than  they  could 
ever  have  been  by  any  mere  earthly  connection. 

There  are  two  sources  of  possible  error  in  examin- 
ing the  records  clairvoyantly ;  first,  personal  bias,  and 
secondly,  limited  views.  There  are  fundamental 
differences  of  temperament,  and  these  cannot  but 
colour  the  views  taken  of  other  planes.  The  adept 
has  a  perfect  perception  of  life,  but  below  that  level 
we  are  sure  to  have  some  prejudices.  The  man  of 
the  world  magnifies  unimportant  details  and  omits  all 
the  important  things,  because  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
doing  that  in  daily  life;  but  on  the  other  hand  a  man 
starting  on  the  Path  may,  in  his  enthusiasm,  lose  for 
a  time  his  touch  with  the  ordinary  human  life  from 
which  he  has  emerged.  Even  then  he  has  made  a 
great  advance,  for  those  who  see  the  inside  of  things 


s 


HOW  PAST  LIVES  ARE  SEEN  155 

are  nearer  to  the  truth  than  those  who  see  only  the 
outside. 

The  statements  of  clairvoyants  may  and  must  be 
coloured  by  opinions  already  formed,  as  was  clearly 
the  case  with  Swedenborg,  who  used  a  very  narrow 
Christian  terminology  to  describe  the  facts  of  the 
astral  plane,  and  unquestionably  saw  many  things 
through  strong  thought-forms  which  he  had  made  in 
previous  years.  He  started  with  certain  definite  pre- 
conceptions, and  he  made  everything  which  he  saw 
fit  into  those  preconceptions.  You  know  how  it  is 
possible  down  here  on  the  physical  plane  to  start  with 
some  preconception  about  a  man  and  distort  his  most 
innocent  words  and  actions  to  fit  that  preconception 
— to  read  into  them  ideas  of  which  the  unfortunate 
man  never  even  dreamt.  The  same  thing  is  possible 
on  the  astral  plane  if  one  is  careless. 

Theosophical  investigators  are  thoroughly  on  their 
guard  against  this  danger  of  personal  bias,  and  use 
constant  checks  of  all  kinds  to  avoid  it.  To  minimise 
the  chance  of  error  from  this  source  the  Masters 
usually  select  people  of  radically  different  types  to 
work  together. 

Secondly,  there  is  the  danger  of  a  limited  view — of 
taking  a  part  for  the  whole.  For  example,  there  has 
been  much  said  of  the  corruption  and  black  magic  of 
later  days  in  Poseidonis,  but  there  existed  there,  at 
that  very  time,  a  secret  society  that  was  quite  pure 
and  had  high  aims.  If  it  had  happened  that  we  had 
seen  only  this  society,  we  might  easily  have  thought 
of  Poseidonis  as  a  most  spiritual  country.  It  is  possi- 
ble, you  see,  that  such  limited  views  may  be  taken  as 
applying  to  a  whole  region  or  community.  Generali- 
sations must  be  checked  and  verified.  There  is,  how- 
ever, a  general  aura  of  a  time  or  a  country,  which 


156  THE  IXXER  LIFE 

usually  prevents  any  great  mistakes  of  this  sort.  A 
psychic  who  has  not  been  trained  to  sense  this  gen- 
eral aura  is  often  unconscious  of  it,  and  thus  the  un- 
trained man  falls  into  many  errors.  In  fact,  long- 
continued  observation  shows  that  all  untrained 
psychics  are  sometimes  reliable  and  sometimes  unre- 
liable, and  those  who  consult  them  always  run  a  risk 
of  being  misled. 

The  records  must  not  be  thought  of  as  originally 
inhering  in  matter  of  any  kind,  though  they  are  re- 
nected  in  it.  In  order  to  read  them  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  come  into  direct  contact  with  any  particular 
grouping  of  matter,  since  they  can  be  read  from  any 
distance,  when  a  connection  has  once  been  made. 

Nevertheless  it  is  also  true  that  each  atom  retains 
the  record,  or  perhaps  only  possesses  the  power  to  put 
a  clairvoyant  en  rapport  with  the  record,  of  all  that 
has  ever  happened  within  sight  of  it.  It  is  by  means 
of  this  quality  that  psychometry  is  possible.  But 
there  is  this  very  curious  limitation  attached  to  it, 
that  the  normal  psychometer  sees  by  means  of  it  only 
what  he  would  have  seen  if  he  had  been  standing  at 
the  spot  from  which  the  object  psychometrised  has 
been  taken.  For  example,  if  a  man  psychometrises  a 
pebble  which  has  been  lying  for  ages  in  a  valley,  he 
will  see  only  what  has  passed  during  those  ages  in 
that  valley ;  his  views  will  be  limited  by  the  surround- 
ing hills,  just  as  if  he  had  stood  for  all  those  ages 
where  the  stone  lay,  and  had  witnessed  all  those 
things. 

True,  there  is  an  extension  of  the  psychometric 
power,  by  which  a  man  may  see  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  the  actors  in  his  drama  as  well  as  their 
physical  bodies,  and  there  is  also  another  extension 
by  which,   having   first   established   himself   in   that 


HOW  PAST  LIVES  ARE  SEEN  157 

valley,  he  may  make  it  the  basis  of  further  opera- 
tions, and  so  pass  over  the  surrounding  hills  and  see 
what  lies  beyond  them,  and  also  what  has  happened 
there  since  the  stone  was  removed,  and  even  what 
occurred  before  it  in  some  manner  arrived  there.  But 
the  man  who  can  do  that  will  soon  be  able  to  dispense 
with  the  stone  altogether.  When  we  use  the  senses 
of  the  causal  body  on  the  counterparts  of  physical 
things,  we  see  that  every  object  is  thus  throwing  off 
pictures  of  the  past. 

As  we  develop  our  inner  consciousness  and  facul- 
ties, our  life  becomes  a  continuous  one;  we  reach  the 
consciousness  of  the  ego,  and  then  we  can  travel 
back  even  as  far  as  the  group-soul  in  which  we  lived 
the  animal  stage  of  our  life,  and  look  through  animal 
eyes  at  the  human  beings  of  that  period  and  the  differ- 
ent world  that  flourished  then.  But  there  are  no 
words  to  tell  what  is  seen  in  that  way,  for  the  differ- 
ence of  outlook  is  beyond  all  expression. 

Short  of  that  continuous  consciousness,  however, 
there  is  no  detailed  memory — not  even  ol  the  most 
important  facts.  For  example,  a  person  who  knows 
the  truth  of  reincarnation  in  one  life  does  not  neces- 
sarily carry  his  certainty  over  to  the  next.  I  forgot 
it  myself,  and  so  did  Mrs.  Besant.  I  did  not  know 
anything  of  it  in  this  life,  until  I  heard  of  it  from 
outside,  and  then  I  instantly  recognised  its  truth. 
Whatever  we  have  known  in  the  past  will  spring  up 
in  the  mind  in  this  way  as  a  certainty  when  it  is  next 
presented  before  us. 

As  a  child  I  used  constantly  to  dream  of  a  cer- 
tain house,  which  I  afterwards  learned  was  a  house 
in  which  I  had  lived  in  a  previous  life.  It  was  quite 
unlike  any  with  which  I  was  at  that  time  familiar  on 
the  physical  plane,  for  it  was  built  round  a  central 


158  THE  1SNER  LIFE 

courtyard  (with  a  fountain  and  statues  and  shr 
into  which  all  the  rooms  looked.  I  used  to  dream  of 
it  perhaps  three  times  a  week,  and  I  knew  every 
room  of  it  and  all  the  people  who  lived  in  it,  and  i 
constantly  to  describe  it  to  my  mother,  and  make 
ground-plans  of  it.  We  called  it  my  dream-house.  As 
I  grew  older  I  dreamt  of  it  less  and  less  frequently, 
until  at  last  it  faded  from  my  memory  altogether. 
But  one  day  to  illustrate  some  point  my  Master 
showed  me  a  picture  of  the  house  in  which  I  had  lived 
in  my  last  incarnation,  and  I  recognised  it  immedi- 
ately. 

Any  one  may  intellectually  appreciate  the  necessity 
of  reincarnation;  but  actually  to  prove  it  one  must 
become,  in  the  causal  body,  cognisant  of  the  past  and 
future.  The  only  way  of  casting  off  the  fetter  of 
doubt  is  by  knowledge  and  intelligent  comprehension. 
Blind  belief  is  a  barrier  to  progress,  but  this  does  not 
mean  that  we  are  wrong  in  accepting  intelligently  the 
statements  of  those  who  know  more  than  ourselves. 
There  are  no  authoritative  dogmas  which  must  be  ac- 
cepted in  the  Theosophical  Society.  There  are  only 
statements  of  the  results  of  investigation,  which  are 
offered  in  the  belief  that  they  will  be  as  helpful  to 
other  minds  as  they  have  been  to  the  investigators. 


Foreseeing  the  Future 

It  is  very  difficult  to  explain  how  the  future  is 
foreseen,  but  there  is  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  the 
fact.  Apart  from  apparently  accidental  pictures  and 
flashes  of  intuition,  often  effective  but  not  under  con- 


FORESEEING  THE  FUTURE  159 

trol,  there  are  two  ways  in  which  the  future  may 
definitely  be  foreseen  by  means  of  the  higher  clair- 
voyance. One  is  quite  readily  explicable  and  com- 
prehensible; the  other  is  not  explicable,  at  all. 

Even  with  only  physical  senses  we  may  see  enough 
to  foretell  certain  things.  If,  for  instance,  we  see  a 
man  leading  an  extravagant  life  of  debauchery,  we 
may  safely  predict  that,  unless  he  changes,  he  will 
presently  lose  both  health  and  fortune.  What  we 
cannot  tell  by  physical  means  is  whether  he  will 
change  or  not.  Eut  a  man  who  has  the  sight  of  the 
causal  body  could  often  tell  this,  because  to  him  the 
reserve  forces  of  the  other  would  be  visible;  he  could 
see  what  the  ego  thought  of  it  all,  and  whether  he  was 
strong  enough  to  interfere.  No  merely  physical  pre- 
diction is  certain,  because  so  many  of  the  causes 
which  influence  life  cannot  be  seen  on  this  lower 
plane.  But  when  we  raise  our  consciousness  to  higher 
planes  we  can  see  more  of  the  causes,  and  so  can  come 
much  nearer  to  calculating  the  effects. 

Obviously  if  all  the  causes  could  be  perfectly  seen 
and  judged,  all  their  results  would  be  readily  calcula- 
ble. Perhaps  none  but  the  Logos  can  see  all  causes  in 
His  system,  but  an  adept  would  surely  be  able  to  see 
all  that  could  affect  an  ordinary  man!  so  it  is  proba- 
ble that  by  this  method  an  adept  could  foretell  the 
life  of  that  man  quite  accurately.  For  the  ordinary 
man  has  little  will-power;  karma  assigns  to  him  ser- 
tain  surroundings,  and  he  is  the  creature  of  those 
surroundings;  he  accepts  the  fate  marked  out  for 
him,  because  he  does  not  know  that  he  can  alter  it. 
A  more  developed  man  takes  hold  of  his  destiny  and 
moulds  it;  he  makes  his  future  what  he  wills  it  to  be, 
counteracting  the  karma  of  the  past  by  setting  fresh 
forces  in  motion.    So  his  future  is  not  so  easily  pre- 


160  THE  INNER  LIFE 

dicable;  but  no  doubt  even  in  this  case  an  adept,  who 
could  see  the  latent  will,  could  also  calculate  how  he 
would  use  it. 

That  method  of  foretelling  the  future  is  entirely 
comprehensible,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  chief  events 
of  any  life  could  be  prophesied  along  that  line.  But 
there  is  another  way  for  which  we  cannot  so  easily 
account.  One  has  only  to  raise  the  consciousness  to 
a  plane  sufficiently  high,  to  find  the  limitation  which 
we  call  time  disappearing,  and  the  past,  present  and 
future  spread  out  before  us  like  an  open  book.  How 
that  can  be  reconciled  with  our  freedom  of  action  I 
am  not  prepared  to  say,  but  I  can  testify  that  the 
fact  is  so;  when  this  sight  is  employed  the  future  is 
simply  there,  down  to  the  minutest  detail.  I  believe 
myself  that  we  are  free  to  choose,  though  only  within 
certain  limits;  yet  a  power,  far  higher  than  we,  may 
well  know  how  we  shall  choose.  You  know  what  your 
dog  will  do  under  certain  conditions,  but  that  does 
not  in  the  least  make  him  do  it;  so  a  power  as  much 
higher  than  man,  as  man  is  than  the  dog,  may  know 
quite  well  how  man  will  use  his  fragment  of  free-will. 

For  it  is  only  a  fragment;  the  plan  of  the  LOGOS  is 
to  trust  us  with  a  little  freedom,  and  see  how  we  use 
it.  If  we  use  it  well  and  wisely,  a  little  more  is  given 
to  us;  and  so  long  as  we  continue  to  use  it  in  har- 
mony with  His  great  intention  of  evolution,  we  shall 
find  more  and  more  freedom  of  choice  coming  to  us. 
But  if  we  are  so  foolish  as  to  use  it  selfishly,  so  as  to 
bring  harm  to  ourselves  and  hinder  His  plan,  we  shall 
find  ourselves  cramped  in  our  action  and  forced  back 
into  line.  A  child  must  have  freedom  to  walk,  even 
though  that  involves  a  risk  of  falling,  or  else  he  will 
never  learn;  but  no  one  would  let  him  make  his  ex- 
periment on  the  edge  of  a  precipice.     So  we  have 


FORESEEING  THE  FUTURE  161 

freedom  enough  to  do  ourselves  a  little  harm  if  we 
use  it  wrongly,  but  not  freedom  enough  to  destroy 
ourselves  altogether. 

Times  of  choice  certainly  come  to  us,  but  between 
those  times  we  have  often  little  option.  When  we 
have  made  our  choice  we  must  abide  by  its  conse- 
quences. Looked  at  from  above,  human  destiny 
seems  rather  like  a  network  of  railway  lines.  A  man 
starts  out  on  a  locomotive,  and  chooses  his  line  of 
rail;  but  when  he  has  chosen  it  he  must  run  along  it, 
and  cannot  swerve  to  the  right  hand  or  the  left  until 
he  reaches  the  first  set  of  points.  Then  he  may  de- 
scend and  set  the  points  as  he  will,  but  having  once 
set  them  and  started  on  his  way  he  must  accept  the 
consequences  of  his  decision ;  he  has  no  power  to  turn 
aside  until  the  next  point  of  choice  comes  in  his  way. 
We  must  not  confuse  free-will  with  freedom  of  action. 

Now  to  possess  fully  the  power  of  forecasting  the 
future  by  either  of  the  methods  described  means 
considerable  development;  but  isolated  pictures  re- 
flected from  both  of  them  may  often  be  had  at  very 
much  lower  levels.  What  is  called  in  Scotland  second- 
sight  appears  to  be  an  example;  by  that,  a  future 
event  is  often  seen  with  quite  a  wealth  of  detail. 

I  remember  reading  of  a  case  where  a  seer  told  a 
sceptic  that  a  certain  man  known  to  them  both  would 
die  at  a  given  time,  and  furthermore  gave  a  detailed 
description  of  his  funeral,  mentioning  the  pall-bear- 
ers by  name.  The  sceptic  ridiculed  the  whole  pre- 
diction, but  when  the  appointed  time  came  the  man 
indicated  did  die  as  had  been  prophesied.  The  scep- 
tic was  astonished,  but  still  more  annoyed,  and  he 
determined  that  the  rest  of  the  story  should  not  come 
true,  for  he  himself  would  interfere  to  falsify  it.  He 
therefore  got  himself  appointed  as  one  of  the  pall- 


162  THE  INNER  LIFE 

bearers!  but  when  the  day  came  and  the  party  was 
just  about  to  start,  he  was  called  aside  for  a  moment, 
and  when  he  returned   he   found  that  the  pr< 
had   already   moved    away,   and    that   the   pall-bearers 
were  those  who  had  been  seen  in  the  vision. 

I  have  myself  had  similar  pictures  of  scenes  in  the 
future — scenes  of  no  interest  to  myself,  and  of  no 
use  so  far  as  I  could  see;  but  they  have  always  hap- 
pened exactly  as  I  had  seen  them,  in  every  case  where 
1  have  had  the  opportunity  of  verifying  them. 

The  Logos  has  thought  out  the  whole  life  of  His 
system,  not  only  as  it  is  now,  but  as  it  has  been  at 
every  moment  in  the  past,  and  as  it  will  be  at  i 
moment  in  the  future.  And  His  thought  calls  into 
existence  that  of  which  He  thinks.  These  thought- 
forms  are  said  to  be  on  the  cosmic  mental  plane — 
two  whole  sets  of  seven  planes  above  our  set  of  seven. 
He  thinks  out  what  He  intends  each  of  the  planetary 
chains  to  do;  He  comes  down  to  smaller  details,  for 
He  thinks  of  the  type  of  man  for  every  root-race  and 
sub-race,  from  the  beginning  of  all,  through  the  ]>- 
murian,  the  Atlantean,  the  Aryan  and  the  succeeding 
races.  Thus  we  may  say  that  on  that  cosmic  mental 
plane  the  whole  of  the  system  was  called  into  exist- 
ence simultaneously  by  that  thought — an  act  of 
special  creation;  and  it  must  all  be  now  simultane- 
ously present  to  Him.  So  that  it  may  well  be  that 
His  mighty  consciousness  to  some  extent  reflects  it- 
self even  on  very  much  lower  levels,  and  somehow  we 
sometimes  catch  faint  glimpses  of  those  reflections. 


Jfftftlj  ^ecium 


£b&as  mtfr  ^ature  spirits 


FIFTH    SECTION" 


The  Aura  of  the  Deva 

HE  devas  are  a  mighty  kingdom  of  spirits, 
the  next  above  humanity,  just  in  the  same 
way  as  the  animal  kingdom  is  the  next  one 
below  it.  You  may  think  of  them  as  great 
and  glorious  angels,  but  of  course  they 
are  of  many  different  kinds,  and  different  degrees 
of  evolution.  None  of  them  are  so  low  down  as  to 
have  physical  bodies  such  as  we  have.  The  lowest 
kind  are  called  kamadevas,  and  they  have  astral 
bodies,  while  the  next  higher  variety  have  bodies 
made  of  lower  mental  matter,  and  so  on.  They  will 
never  be  human,  because  most  of  them  are  already 
beyond  that  stage,  but  there  are  some  of  them  who 
have  been  human  beings  in  the  past.  When  men  come 
to  the  end  of  their  evolution  as  men,  and  become  some- 
thing greater  than  human,  several  paths  open  before 
them,  and  one  of  these  is  to  join  this  beautiful  deva 
evolution. 

Devas  and  men  differ  in  appearance.  For  one 
thing  devas  are  more  fluidic — capable  of  far  greater 
expansion  and  contraction.  Secondly,  they  have  a 
certain  fiery  quality  which  is  clearly  distinguishable 
from  that  of  any  ordinary  human  being.  The  only 
kind  of  human  being  with  whom  it  might  be  possible 


166  THE  INNER  LIFE 

to  confound  them  would  be  the  highly-developed — ■ 
an  arhat,  for  example,  who  had  a  large  and  well-ar- 
ranged aura;  but  even  then  one  who  had  seen  both 
would  not  be  likely  to  mistake  them.  The  aura  of  the 
ordinary  man  is  capable  of  a  certain  amount  of  tem- 
porary expansion.  It  has  a  definite  size,  which  is  the 
same  as  that  of  a  section  of  the  causal  body,  and  as 
the  causal  body  grows,  that  section  becomes  larger, 
and  the  man  has  a  larger  aura;  but  such  increase 
comes  only  gradually. 

If  you  remember  the  plates  in  Man  Visible  and  In- 
visible, you  will  recollect  that  the  ordinary  man,  as 
far  as  the  causal  body  is  concerned,  is  far  from  being 
fully  developed.  When  you  look  at  the  causal  body 
of  the  developed  man,  you  will  see  that  it  is  full  of 
colour,  so  the  first  stages  of  improvement  in  the  case 
of  the  ordinary  man  consists  in  its  filling  up,  not  its 
enlargement.  He  must  get  the  ovoid  filled  with 
different  colours,  and  then  expansion  begins. 

If  any  sudden  rush  of  feeling  comes  over  the  ordi- 
nary man,  it  shows  itself,  as  depicted  in  the  book,  by 
the  flashing  in  the  aura,  and  out  from  it,  of  the  colour 
of  the  quality  expressed — rose  for  affection,  blue  for 
devotion  or  green  for  sympathy;  and  also  in  the  pul- 
sating bands  of  that  colour,  and  in  the  general  inten- 
sification of  everything  connected  with  that  emotion. 
It  does  not  do  more  than  that  for  the  ordinary  man; 
an  exceedingly  vivid  rush  of  affection,  for  example, 
fills  the  aura  with  rose  and  sends  out  thought-forms 
of  that  colour  in  the  direction  of  its  object;  but  it  does 
not  usually  appreciably  increase,  even  temporarily, 
the  size  of  the  aura. 

The  developed  man,  however,  has  already  filled  the 
causal  body  with  colour,  so  in  his  case  the  effect  pro- 
duced by  such  a  rush  of  affection  or  devotion  or  sym- 


THE  AURA  OF  THE  DEVA  167 

pathy  is  not  only  to  suffuse  the  body  with  colour  and 
cause  a  great  outrush  of  thought-forms,  but  also  to 
produce  a  considerable  temporary  expansion,  though 
the  aura  afterwards  contracts  to  its  normal  size. 
Each  such  outrush  of  feeling  makes  the  aura  perma- 
nently just  a  little  larger  than  before.  The  more  it 
increases,  the  more  power  the  man  has  to  feel.  In- 
tellectual development  also  increases  the  aura,  but  in 
that  case  yellow  is  the  predominant  colour. 

Remember  that  utterly  unselfish  affection  or  devo- 
tion belongs  not  to  the  astral  but  to  the  buddhic  plane, 
and  that  is  why  when  a  wave  of  such  feeling  rushes 
over  a  man  it  causes  great  temporary  expansion  of 
his  aura;  yet  it  never  increases  to  the  same  tremen- 
dous extent  as  with  a  deva.  The  fluctuations  in  the 
aura  of  a  deva  are  so  great  as  to  be  startling  to  those 
who  are  not  used  to  them.  One  who  recently  did  us 
the  honour  to  pay  us  a  visit  at  Adyar,  to  give  us  in- 
formation about  the  foundation  of  the  sixth  root- 
race,  had  normally  an  aura  of  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  yards  in  diameter;  but  when  he  became  inter- 
ested in  the  teaching  which  he  was  giving  to  us,  that 
aura  increased  until  it  reached  the  sea,  which  is  about 
a  mile  away  from  us. 

No  human  being  could  feel  sufficient  emotion  to 
produce  such  an  increase  as  this.  Even  in  the  case 
of  a  Master  the  proportionate  temporary  enlarge- 
ment would  never  be  so  great.  I  do  not  mean  any- 
thing derogatory  to  the  deva,  when  I  say  that  the 
Master  is  steadier,  and  that  the  permanent  growth  of 
His  aura  would  be  as  great  as  that  of  the  deva,  but 
the  temporary  expansion  less  in  proportion.  The 
texture  of  the  deva's  aura  is,  as  it  were,  looser.  The 
same  extent  of  aura  in  a  human  being  contains  more 
matter,  because  it  is  more  condensed  or  concentrated. 


1G8  THE  INNER  LIFE 

The  deva  in  question  was  no  further  advanced  than 
an  arhat,  whose  aura  might  probably  extend  a  third 
of  the  distance.  But  it  might  easily  happen  that  a 
clairvoyant  who  had  not  seen  either  before  might 
realise  only  that  he  was  surrounded  by  a  cloud  of 
glory  in  either  case,  and  he  probably  would  not  know 
the  difference. 

Expansion  and  growth  take  place  in  the  astral  and 
mental  bodies  as  well  as  in  the  causal.  These  three 
bodies  are  all  of  the  same  extent,  although  you  must 
remember  one  is  dealing  with  only  sections,  and  even 
sections  of  sections.  There  used  to  be  a  theory 
afloat  that  the  causal  body  of  the  ordinary  man  was 
about  the  size  of  a  pea,  and  that  it  gradually  in- 
creased; but  that  is  not  correct.  The  undeveloped 
causal  body  is  the  same  size  as  any  other,  until  the 
expansion  begins. 

As  I  have  said,  the  aura  of  a  deva  has  fiery  charac- 
teristics which  are  not  easy  to  describe,  though  very 
readily  recognisable.  All  of  the  colours  are  more 
fluidic,  and  of  the  nature  of  flame  rather  than  of 
cloud.  A  man  looks  like  an  exceedingly  brilliant,  yet 
delicate  cloud  of  glowing  gas,  but  a  deva  looks  like 
a  mass  of  fire. 

The  human  form  inside  the  aura  of  a  deva  is  very 
much  less  defined  than  in  a  man.  He  lives  more  in 
the  circumference,  more  all  over  his  aura  than  a  man 
does.  Ninety-nine  per  cent  of  the  matter  of  a  man's 
aura  is  within  the  periphery  of  the  physical  body, 
but  the  proportion  is  far  less  in  the  case  of  a  deva. 
Devas  usually  appear  as  human  beings  of  gigantic 
size.  Somebody  has  suggested  that  there  are  devas 
who  look  as  though  they  were  feathered.  There  is 
some  justification  for  this  idea;  I  know  exactly  the  ap- 
pearance that  that  man  was  trying  to  describe,  but 


THE  AURA  OF  THE  DEVA  169 

it  is  not  easy  to  put  it  into  words.  The  great  green 
devas  whom  I  saw  in  Ireland  have  a  very  striking  ap- 
pearance, being  enormous  in  size  and  most  majestic- 
One  cannot  describe  them  accurately;  in  words  it  is 
only  possible  to  approximate.  The  painters  usually 
represent  angels  with  wings  and  feathers,  but  I  think 
where  these  are  mentioned  in  the  Christian  scrip- 
tures they  are  always  symbolical,  for  when  real  angels 
appear  they  are  sometimes  mistaken  for  human  be- 
ings (as  by  Abraham,  for  example)  ;  so  obviously 
they  could  not  have  had  wings. 

In  many  cases  a  deva  may  be  distinguished  by  the 
form  which  he  happens  to  be  taking  inside  his  ovoid. 
It  is  nearly  always  a  human  form.  You  remember 
that  nature-spirits  take  human  form  almost  invari- 
bly,  but  with  a  peculiarity  of  some  sort — always  a 
little  odd.  I  should  be  disposed  to  say  the  same  of 
the  devas;  but  it  would  be  wrong  to  think  of  their 
forms  as  in  any  way  distorted,  for  they  have  a  great 
dignity  and  majesty. 

The  devas  produce  thoughixforms  as  we  do,  but 
theirs  are  not  usually  so  concrete  as  ours  until  they 
reach  a  high  level.  They  have  a  wide  generalising 
nature,  and  are  constantly  making  gorgeous  plans. 
They  have  a  colour-language,  which  is  probably  not 
as  definite  as  our  speech,  though  in  certain  ways  it 
may  express  more. 

As  regards  the  size  of  the  aura,  that  of  an  ordi- 
nary man  extends  about  eighteen  inches  on  each  side 
of  the  body.  If  he  puts  his  elbow  against  his  side 
and  stretches  out  his  arm  and  hand,  his  finger-tips 
will  be  near  the  circumference.  The  average  Theoso- 
phist  may  be  a  trifle  larger  than  the  quite  uninter- 
ested person;  but  there  are  fine,  large  auras  outside 
the  Society  as  well.  Intense  feeling  means  a  larger 
aura. 


170  THE  INNER  LIFE 

We  may  have  a  distortion  of  the  aura — it  may  be 
a  little  out  of  shape.  As  I  have  explained  before, 
most  people  have  the  small  end  of  the  egg  upwards, 
but  we  who  are  students  tend  to  grow  larger  at  the 
top,  because  the  characteristics  which  we  are  develop- 
ing express  themselves  in  matter  which  naturally 
floats  in  the  upper  part  of  the  aura  because  of  its 
specific  gravity.  The  increased  size  of  the  aura  is  a 
prerequisite  for  initiation,  and  the  qualifications 
should  be  visible  in  it.  The  aura  of  a  Buddha  is  said 
in  the  books  to  be  three  miles  in  radius;  at  one  stage 
below  His,  I  have  myself  seen  one  which  extends 
about  two  miles.  It  naturally  increases  with  each 
initiation. 

The  devas  do  not  come  along  our  line  of  develop- 
ment, and  do  not  take  such  initiations  as  we  do,  for 
the  two  kingdoms  converge  at  a  point  higher  than  the 
adept.  There  are  ways  in  which  a  man  can  enter 
the  deva  evolution,  even  at  our  own  stage,  or  lower. 

You  ask  if  the  devas  are  often  near  at  hand  and 
willing  to  teach  men.  They  are  usually  quite  willing 
to  expound  and  exemplify  subjects  along  their  own 
line  to  any  human  being  who  is  sufficiently  developed 
to  appreciate  them.  Much  instruction  is  being  given 
in  this  way;  but  most  people  have  not  prepared  them- 
selves for  it  yet,  and  so  are  unable  to  profit  by  it. 
We  know  nothing  of  any  rule  or  limit  for  the  work 
of  the  devas;  they  have  more  lines  of  activity  than 
we  can  imagine. 

There  are  usually  plenty  of  them  here  at  Adyar. 
We  have  many  great  advantages  here,  where  the  Mas- 
ters come  so  frequently.  In  order  to  see  them,  all  that 
is  required  is  a  little  clairvoyance  at  the  right  mo- 
ment. There  is  a  stimulus  from  these  Beings,  which 
some  feel  in  one  way  and  some  in  others.     Perhaps 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  A  TREE  171 

in  the  earlier  incarnation  of  the  Lord  Gautama  as  the 
first  Zoroaster,  the  fire  which  is  one  of  the  signs  of 
His  development  may  have  been  one  of  the  reasons 
why  He  was  mistaken  for  a  deva.  It  is  said  that 
during  meditation  flames  leapt  from  the  aura  of  the 
Lord  Buddha;  but  we  must  remember  that  an  ordi- 
nary thought-form  would  often  appear  flame-like  to 
a  person  who  was  not  used  to  such  things.  The  shin- 
ing of  the  Christ  at  the  transfiguration  is  a  similar 
case. 

There  are  plenty  of  glorious  influences  all  around 
us  here,  but  their  effect  upon  each  one  of  us  can  be 
only  in  proportion  to  his  receptivity.  We  can  take 
from  all  this  just  what  we  make  ourselves  fit  to  take, 
and  no  more.  A  person  who  is  thinking  of  himself 
all  the  while  may  bathe  in  this  glowing  magnetism 
for  a  year,  and  not  be  one  iota  the  better  for  it.  He 
may  even  be  the  worse;  for  these  tremendously 
strong  vibrations  tend  to  intensify  a  man's  qualities, 
and  sometimes  the  undesirable  are  strengthened  as 
well  as  the  desirable;  or  he  may  be  altogether  upset, 
and  become  unbalanced  and  hysterical.  To  a  man  who 
is  wise  enough  to  take  it,  a  stay  at  Adyar  is  an  oppor- 
tunity such  as  few  men  have  ever  had  during  history; 
but  what  we  make  of  it  depends  entirely  upon  our- 
selves. 


The  Spirit  of  a  Tree 

The  spirit  of  a  great  tree,  such  as  a  banyan,  not  in- 
frequently externalises  itself,  and  when  it  does  so  it 
usually  takes  on  a  gigantic  human  form.     I   have 


172  THE  INNER  LIFE 

noticed  one  near  here,  for  example,  whose  form  is 
about  twelve  feet  high,  and  looked  like  a  woman  the 
last  time  I  saw  it.  Its  features  were  quite  clear,  but 
its  form  was  misty.  There  are  also  nature-spirits 
which  cling  round  a  tree,  and  do  not  at  all  like  to  be 
disturbed.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  nature-spirits 
do  not  cling  round  the  trees  which  man  fells  for  tim- 
ber ;  but  such  observations  as  I  have  been  able  to  make 
do  not  bear  out  this  contention,  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  must  have  been  invented  by  men  who  wished 
to  destroy  the  tree  without  feeling  any  unpleasant 
twinges  of  conscience. 

Although  it  takes  so  fine  a  form,  the  spirit  of  a 
tree  is  not  individualised,  nor  even  within  measurable 
distance  of  individualisation.  Nevertheless,  it  is  al- 
ready much  higher  than  the  lower  forms  of  animal 
life,  and  when  it  passes  into  the  animal  kingdom  it 
will  come  straight  into  some  of  the  mammalian 
groups.  It  has  its  likes  and  dislikes,  and  these  show 
in  its  aura,  though  the  colour  and  definition  are  natur- 
ally altogether  vaguer  and  dimmer  than  in  the  case 
of  an  animal.  Indeed,  in  animals  who  glow  with 
affection  its  colour  is  often  remarkably  strong; 
stronger  in  the  case  of  some  animals  than  that  which 
is  shown  by  some  human  beings,  because  it  is  so  much 
more  concentrated  and  one-pointed. 

The  strong  attraction  which  some  people  feel  for 
particular  kinds  of  trees  or  animals  depends  often 
upon  the  line  of  animal  and  vegetable  evolution 
through  which  those  people  have  risen. 


Jlixiij  £&ectian 


%>  Porlit  ano  %  Jtaces  of  <fc 


SIXTH    SECTION 


The  Building  of  the  System 

UR  solar  system  has  seven  planes  which, 
when  taken  together,  form  the  lowest  of 
the  great  cosmic  planes.  There  was  a  time 
when  this  cosmic  plane  consisted  only  of 
what  was  to  it  atomic  matter,  that  is  to 
say,  of  the  bubbles  in  koilon.  That  was  the  condition 
existing  on  what  we  may  call  the  site  of  the  solar 
system.  When  the  Solar  Logos  chose  to  manifest 
Himself,  when  He  came  forth  out  of  eternity  into 
time,  and  wished  to  form  this  system,  He  commenced 
first  of  all  by  defining  an  area,  the  limit  perhaps  of 
His  own  aura. 

Within  that  area  He  began  His  work  upon  the 
bubbles  in  koilon  (which  seem  to  have  been  already 
constructed,  probably  by  some  still  greater  Logos) 
using  them  as  the  atoms  of  our  highest  plane,  and 
creating  the  universe  in  seven  breaths.  For  example, 
He  did  not  make  the  physical-plane  matter  directly 
from  the  astral-plane  matter,  but  withdrew  into  Him- 
self some  of  the  matter  of  the  astral  plane  and  then 
breathed  it  out  again  in  a  new  combination.  Thus 
there  is  what  is  sometimes  called  a  fresh  tanmatra 
as  well  as  a  fresh  tattwa  for  each  plane. 


176  THE  INNER   LIFE 

The  shortest  and  clearest  definition  of  these  words 
which  I  have  ever  heard  was  given  by  the  late  T. 
Subba  Rao.     He  said: 

"The  tanmatra  is  the  modification  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  Logos,  and  the  tattwa  is  the  effect 
produced  in  matter  by  that  modification.  You  have 
seen  how  on  a  sandy  shore  a  little  wave  comes  quietly 
in,  runs  up  on  the  sand  and  retires.  But  it  has  left 
behind  it  a  tiny  ridge  to  mark  its  limit.  If  the  tide 
is  rising,  the  next  wave  which  comes  in  goes  a  little 
further  up  the  beach,  makes  its  mark  in  turn  and 
then  retires.  You  may  think  of  the  tanmatra  as 
imaged  by  that  wave,  which  is  the  temporary  modi- 
fication of  the  ocean,  and  you  may  think  of  the  little 
ridge  made  in  the  sand  as  symbolising  the  tattwa." 

The  meaning  of  the  word  tattwa  appears  to  be 
"thatness,"  or  "inherent  quality." 

Though  the  atoms  of  the  various  planes  as  we  de- 
scend are  thus  not  made  directly  from  one  another, 
it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the  atoms  of  the  lower  planes 
could  not  be  made  as  they  are  unless  the  bubbles  of 
which  they  are  composed  had  already  had  the  ex- 
perience of  passing  through  all  the  others  above.  The 
atom  of  the  second  plane  already  consists  of  forty- 
nine  of  these  bubbles,  and  the  atom  of  the  third  or 
nirvanic  plane  of  two  thousand  four  hundred  and 
one.  This  proportion  persists  all  the  way  down,  so 
that  the  same  energy  which  makes  forty-nine  astral 
atoms  makes  only  one  physical  atom,  the  bubbles 
being  arranged  differently. 

If  we  could  take  a  physical  atom  and  put  it  back 
plane  by  plane  up  to  the  highest,  it  would  be  found 
to  consist  of  about  fourteen  thousand  million  of  these 
bubbles.  But  when  the  Logos  is  making  the  planes, 
the  matter  of  one  plane  is  drawn  up  and  disintegrated 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  SYSTEM  177 

down  to  the  original  bubbles,  and  then  recombined 
to  make  the  matter  of  the  next  lower  plane.  It  is 
probable  that  the  force  by  which  some  greater  Logos 
formed  the  bubbles  in  koilon  is  what  Madame  Bla- 
vatsky  calls  fohat,  for  you  remember  that  that  is 
spoken  of  as  digging  holes  in  space,  and  the  holes 
may  be  these  infinitesimal  bubbles,  instead  of  solar 
systems,  as  we  at  first  supposed. 

I  do  not  know  whether  each  bubble  is  rotating 
round  its  own  axis  or  not.  Remember,  it  is  not  like 
a  soap-bubble,  which  is  a  film  of  water  with  an  outer 
and  inner  surface,  enclosing  air  inside  it;  it  is  like 
a  bubble  in  soda-water,  which  has  only  one  surface, 
where  the  air  meets  the  water.  To  the  highest  sight 
that  we  can  as  yet  bring  to  bear  upon  it,  it  appears 
to  be  absolutely  empty,  so  we  cannot  tell  whether  there 
is  any  interior  motion  going  on  in  it  or  not.  It  seems 
to  have  no  proper  motion  of  its  own,  but  it  can  be 
moved  as  a  whole  from  without,  singly  or  en  masse, 
by  an  exertion  of  the  will.  No  two  of  these  bubbles 
ever  under  any  circumstances  touch  each  other. 

The  drawing  of  the  physical  atom  which  is  given 
in  the  frontispiece  to  The  Ancient  Wisdom  is  not 
quite  accurate;  it  is  far  too  flat — too  much  like  a 
locket  in  appearance.  The  drawing  given  in  Occult 
Chemistry  is  far  better.  The  atom  in  reality  is  nearly 
globular,  and  its  projecting  points  lie  almost  on  the 
surface  of  a  sphere.  It  looks  somewhat  like  a  wire 
cage,  composed  of  ten  endless  wires,  which  lie  com- 
pletely separate  and  never  touch  one  another — that 
is,  if  any  one  of  them  were  taken  out  and  uncoiled, 
and  laid  out  flat,  it  would  be  a  circle.  The  arrange- 
ment is  rather  complicated,  and  a  diagram  is  neces- 
sary in  order  to  make  it  clear.  A  model  would  be 
still  better,  but  no  one  has  yet  had  the  time  or  the 
patience  to  make  one. 


178  THE  INNER  LIFE 

By  reference  to  the  illustration  in  Occult  Chemistry 
it  will  be  seen  that  three  of  these  ten  wires  are  thicker 
than  the  rest,  for  in  them  the  seven  sets  of  spirillae 
do  not  fit  accurately  over  one  another  (as  they  do  in 
the  other  wires),  because  in  every  seven  hundred 
turns  there  are  four  more  atoms.  This  means  an  in- 
crease of  one  in  every  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
bubbles,  and  it  is  this  which  makes  those  three  seem 
larger  than  the  rest.  A  scientific  man,  in  criticising 
the  Koilon  article,  said  that  in  dealing  with  such 
minute  particles  it  was  impossible  to  be  so  accurate, 
but  that  is  only  because  he  did  not  understand  that  it 
is  a  mere  question  of  counting  and  comparison. 

The  atom  has  three  movements  of  its  own:  (1) 
rotation  on  its  axis;  (2)  an  orbital  motion,  for  it  is 
continually  running  round  in  a  small  circle;  (3)  a 
pulsation  like  a  heart,  a  constant  expansion  and  con- 
traction. These  three  movements  are  always  going 
on,  and  are  unaffected  by  any  force  from  outside.  A 
force  from  outside — a  ray  of  light  for  example — will 
set  the  atom  as  a  whole  moving  violently  up  and  down, 
the  phase  of  this  movement  being  proportional  to  the 
intensity  of  the  light,  and  its  wave-length  being  de- 
termined by  the  colour  of  the  light.  A  curious  feature 
is  that  when  this  happens  one  of  the  seven  minor 
wires  of  the  atom  begins  to  glow — the  wire  which 
corresponds  to  the  colour  of  the  light  which  is  set- 
ting the  whole  atom  in  motion. 

The  atom  exists  because  of  the  force  which  the 
Logos  is  pouring  through  it,  precisely  as  a  little  re- 
volving column  of  dust  and  leaves,  at  the  corner  of 
the  street,  exists  because  of  the  whirling  wind  which 
made  it.  The  existence  of  matter  depends  therefore 
absolutely  upon  the  continuance  of  an  idea  in  the  mind 
of  the  Logos;  if  He  chose  to  withdraw  His  force  from 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  SYSTEM  179 

the  physical  plane — to  cease  thinking  it — every 
physical  atom  would  instantly  disintegrate,  and  the 
whole  physical  plane  would  disappear  in  an  instant 
like  the  light  of  a  candle  when  it  is  blown  out. 

Besides  this  force  which  holds  the  atom  together 
in  its  spiral  form,  a  number  of  the  forces  of  the 
Logos  are  also  playing  round  its  coils — or  perhaps 
we  should  rather  say,  one  of  His  forces  is  playing 
at  a  number  of  different  levels.  There  are  seven 
orders  of  this  force,  which  are  eventually,  at  the  end 
of  the  seventh  round,  to  play  fully  round  the  seven 
sets  of  spirilla?;  but  some  of  them  are  not  yet  in 
activity,  since  this  is  only  the  fourth  round. 

There  is  some  reason  to  believe  that  what  the 
scientific  people  call  electrons  may  be  what  we  call 
astral  atoms,  for  they  have  said  that  in  a  chemical 
atom  of  hydrogen  there  are  probably  somewhere  be- 
tween seven  hundred  and  a  thousand  of  these  elec- 
trons. Now  it  happens  that  in  a  chemical  atom  of 
hydrogen  there  are  eight  hundred  and  eighty-two 
astral  atoms.  This  may  of  course  be  only  a  coinci- 
dence, but  that  seems  somewhat  improbable.  If  this 
suggestion  be  true  it  follows  that  in  some  of  their 
experiments  our  scientific  men  must  be  actually  dis- 
integrating physical  matter,  and  throwing  it  back  on 
to  the  astral  plane;  in  which  case  it  would  seem  that 
they  must  presently  be  forced  to  admit  the  existence 
of  astral  matter,  though  they  will  naturally  think  of 
it  as  nothing  but  a  further  subdivision  of  physical 
matter. 

I  do  not  know  whether  in  such  cases  the  disinteg- 
rated physical  atoms  re-form  themselves;  but  in  our 
experiments,  when  by  an  effort  of  the  will  the  physi- 
cal atom  is  broken  up  into  astral  or  mental  atoms,  it 
means  only  that  for  a  moment  the  human  will  is  set 


180  THE  INNER  LIFE 

against  the  divine  will  which  formed  that  atom.  It 
requires  a  distinct  effort  to  hold  the  atom  temporarily 
in  a  different  form,  and  the  moment  that  the  human 
will  is  withdrawn  the  divine  will  re-asserts  itself  and 
the  physical  atom  is  there  once  more.  This,  however, 
seems  to  apply  only  to  the  breaking  up  of  the  ulti- 
mate atoms  of  the  plane;  when  for  experimental  pur- 
poses we  break  up  a  chemical  atom  into  physical  ulti- 
mate atoms,  it  remains  in  that  condition,  and  does 
not  return  to  its  original  state. 

In  interstellar  space  (between  solar  systems)  we 
are  given  to  understand  that  atoms  lie  far  apart  and 
equidistant;  and  I  believe  that  that  is  their  normal 
condition  when  undisturbed.  That  is  what  is  meant 
by  speaking  of  the  atoms  as  free.  Within  the  atmos- 
phere of  a  planet  they  are  never  found  in  at  all  that 
state,  for  even  when  not  grouped  in  forms,  they  are 
at  any  rate  enormously  compressed  by  the  force  of 
attraction. 

A  man  has  a  causal  body  on  the  atomic  mental 
plane,  but  the  mental  atoms  composing  it  will  be 
crushed  together  by  attraction  into  a  very  definite  and 
quite  dense  shape,  even  though  they  are  in  no  way 
altered  in  themselves,  and  are  not  grouped  into  mole- 
cules. Such  a  body  could  exist  comfortably  on  its  own 
atomic  plane  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  planet,  where 
the  atomic  matter  is  in  the  compressed  condition; 
but  it  would  not  at  all  be  able  to  move  or  function  in 
this  far-away  space  where  the  atoms  remain  abso- 
lutely free  and  uncompressed. 

The  conditions  in  interplanetary  space  are  probably 
not  exactly  the  same  as  in  interstellar  space,  for  there 
may  be  a  great  deal  of  disturbance  due  to  cometic 
and  meteoric  matter,  and  also  the  tremendous  attrac- 
tion of  the  sun  produces  a  considerable  compression 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  SYSTEM  181 

within  the  limits  of  his  system.  Indeed,  the  vortex 
made  in  the  first  place  by  the  Logos  is  of  course  still 
in  action ;  and  part  of  its  action  was  to  draw  in  matter 
from  the  surrounding  space  and  compress  it.  I  have 
no  information  upon  the  question  as  to  whether 
atoms  floating  within  the  limits  of  the  solar  system 
would  or  would  not  be  necessarily  all  vivified  by  ele- 
mental essence.  It  seems  to  me  most  probable,  how- 
ever, that  only  those  atoms  which  make  the  mental, 
astral  and  physical  bodies  (the  latter  of  course,  in- 
cluding the  atmosphere  and  the  lower  varieties  of 
ether)  of  the  sun  and  the  various  planets  and  comets 
would  be  so  vivified. 

At  any  rate,  as  we  began  by  saying,  the  Logos 
chooses  His  area — an  area  of  size  stupendous  beyond 
our  comprehension.  Astronomy  tells  us  that  the  dis- 
tance between  solar  systems  is  so  enormous  as  to  be 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  systems  themselves.  It 
is  nevertheless  probable  that  the  Logoi  of  those  sys- 
tems are  actually  in  touch  with  one  another,  and  that 
the  solar  system  existing  in  the  centre  of  each  of 
these  inconceivably  vast  spheres  represents  the  con- 
densation of  matter  which  was  originally  scattered 
throughout  the  whole  of  that  prodigious  area,  in  a 
condition  of  the  minutest  possible  subdivision — per- 
haps in  the  condition  of  the  ultimate  bubbles  which 
are  the  atoms  of  our  highest  plane. 

At  a  certain  stage  in  that  condensation  or  com- 
pression— a  stage  when  the  radius  of  His  globe  still 
extends  far  beyond  the  orbit  of  the  outermost  planet 
of  our  system  as  it  is  to-day — He  sets  up  within  it  a 
whirling  motion  accompanied  by  intense  electrical 
action,  thus  making  a  kind  of  colossal  vortex  in  many 
dimensions.  The  compression  of  the  whirling  mass 
is  continued  through  what  to  us  would  be  untold  ages, 


182  (  THE  INNER  LIFE 

in  the  course  of  which  He  breathes  the  seven  breaths 
of  which  we  have  previously  spoken,  and  thereby 
groups  the  bubbles  into  the  atomic  matter  of  the  vari- 
ous planes.  Eventually  there  comes  a  point  at  which 
He  sends  through  it  a  kind  of  electrical  shock,  which 
precipitates  it  into  a  lower  condition  of  matter,  so 
that  instead  of  being  a  mere  aggregation  of  atoms  it 
becomes  definitely  a  combination  of  them,  usually  a 
mass  of  glowing  hydrogen. 

Here  we  have  the  nebular  stage,  through  which 
various  systems  in  our  universe  are  at  this  moment 
passing,  as  may  be  seen  by  means  of  any  large  tele- 
scope. As  our  nebula  revolved  round  its  axis  it  gradu- 
ally cooled,  contracted  and  flattened  down,  so  that 
eventually  it  became  rather  a  huge  revolving  disc  than 
a  sphere.  Presently  fissures  appeared  in  this  disc 
and  it  broke  into  rings,  presenting  somewhat  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  planet  Saturn  and  its  surroundings, 
but  on  a  gigantic  scale.  At  a  chosen  point  in  each 
of  these  rings  a  subsidiary  vortex  was  set  up,  and 
gradually  much  of  the  matter  of  the  ring  was  gathered 
into  this.  The  concussion  of  the  fragments  generated 
an  amount  of  heat  which  reduced  them  to  a  gaseous 
condition  and  thus  formed  a  huge  glowing  ball,  which 
gradually,  as  it  cooled,  condensed  into  a  planet. 

The  planet  formed  upon  the  ring  in  this  particular 
part  of  the  system  was,  however,  not  the  earth  but 
the  moon.  We  think  of  the  moon  as  the  satellite  of 
the  earth,  comparing  it  in  our  minds  with  the  satel- 
lites of  Mars,  Jupiter  or  Saturn;  but  in  reality  the 
comparison  is  unfair,  for  the  moon  is  more  a  com- 
panion planet  than  a  satellite.  No  other  satellite  in 
the  solar  system  bears  at  all  the  same  proportion  to 
its  primary  as  the  moon  does  to  the  earth,  even 
though  it  is  now  much  smaller  than  it  used  to  be,  as 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  SYSTEM  183 

will  be  presently  explained.  It  was  the  one  physical 
planet  of  the  lunar  chain,  and  our  present  humanity 
inhabited  it  in  the  distant  past,  although  we  were 
then  a  stage  further  back,  and  were  in  the  animal 
kingdom. 

The  earth  came  into  existence  when  the  active  life 
of  the  moon  was  already  over.  A  new  vortex  was  set 
up  not  far  away  from  the  moon,  and  the  rest  of  the 
matter  of  the  ring  was  gradually  gathered  into  it. 
The  resultant  collisions  once  more  produced  a  ball  of 
glowing  gas,  which  enfolded  the  body  of  the  moon 
and  very  soon  reduced  it  to  a  similar  condition.  As 
this  combined  mass  gradually  cooled,  condensation 
took  place  round  the  two  vortices,  but  by  far  the 
larger  part  of  the  matter  was  attracted  to  the  new 
one  which  became  the  earth,  leaving  the  moon  a  much 
smaller  body  than  it  had  been  and  altogether  denuded 
of  air  and  water. 

The  moon  was  still,  from  the  intense  heat,  in  a 
plastic  condition  like  hot  mud,  and  the  earth  in  its 
earlier  stages  was  subject  to  the  most  tremendous 
volcanic  convulsions.  In  the  course  of  these,  enor- 
mous masses  of  rock,  often  many  miles  in  diameter, 
were  thrown  up  into  space  to  vast  distances  in  all 
directions.  The  majority  of  these  fell  back  upon  the 
earth,  but  some  of  them  struck  the  moon  while  still 
in  its  plastic  condition  and  produced  upon  it  many 
of  those  huge  depressions  which  we  now  call  lunar 
craters.  Any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  of  throw- 
ing a  few  small  pebbles  into  mud  at  the  right  stage 
of  consistency  will  find  that  he  obtains  in  that  way  an 
effect  precisely  similar  to  that  which  we  observe  upon 
the  surface  of  the  moon.  Some  of  the  lunar  craters 
are  really  craters,  but  not  many. 

The  moon  is  now  like  a  vast  cinder,  hard  but  porous, 


184  THE  INNER   LIFE 

of  a  consistency  not  unlike  that  of  pumice-stone,  though 
harder.  Hardly  any  physical  action  of  any  sort  is 
now  taking  place  upon  the  surface  of  the  moon.  It  is 
probably  slowly  disintegrating,  and  we  are  told  that 
in  the  course  of  our  seventh  round  it  will  break  up  al- 
together, and  its  matter  will  be  used  (with  presum- 
ably some  of  our  own)  to  build  a  new  world  which 
will  be  the  only  physical  globe  of  the  next  incarna- 
tion of  our  chain.  To  that  new  globe  whatever  re- 
mains of  the  earth  will  act  as  a  satellite. 

The  moon  has  often  been  described  in  Theosophical 
literature  as  the  eighth  sphere,  because  it  is  not  one 
of  the  seven  planets  of  our  chain  upon  which  evolu- 
tion is  taking  place.  It  is  therefore  what  is  called  a 
"dead  end,"  a  place  where  only  refuse  gathers,  and 
it  is  a  kind  of  a  dust-heap  or  waste-paper-basket  to 
the  system — a  kind  of  astral  cesspool  into  which  are 
thrown  decaying  fragments  of  various  sorts,  such  as 
the  lost  personality  which  has  torn  itself  away  from 
the  ego,  who  has  allowed  it  to  slip  out  of  his  grasp 
in  the  manner  which  I  explained  in  the  first  volume 
of  this  book,  in  the  article  on  Lost  Souls. 


The  Planetary  Chains 

Our  solar  system  at  the  present  moment  contains 
ten  chains,  each  consisting  of  seven  globes,  and  these 
are  evolving  side  by  side,  though  at  different  stages. 
Seven  of  them  are  represented  upon  the  physical  level 
by  one  or  more  globes,  but  the  three  others  exist  only 
on  higher  levels.  The  number  of  globes  on  the  physi- 
cal plane  which  a  chain  has  at  any  given  time  depends 


THE  PLANETARY  CHAINS  185 

upon  the  stage  of  its  evolution.  The  globes  of  each 
chain  present  us  with  a  small  cycle  of  evolution  de- 
scending into  denser  matter  and  then  ascending  out 
of  it,  and  in  an  exactly  analogous  manner  the  suc- 
cessive incarnations  of  a  chain  also  descend  into  denser 
matter  and  then  ascend  out  of  it.  Our  own  chain  is 
at  the  present  moment  at  its  lowest  level  of  materiality, 
so  that  of  its  seven  planets  three  are  on  the  physical 
plane,  two  on  the  astral  and  two  on  the  lower  mental. 

We  usually  employ  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  to 
denote  these  globes  in  their  order ;  so  we  should  repre- 
sent the  present  condition  of  affairs  by  saying  that 
globes  A  and  G  are  on  the  lower  mental  plane;  globes 
B  and  F  on  the  astral,  and  globes  C,  D,  and  E  upon  the 
physical  level,  C  and  E  being  smaller  than  D.  It  will 
be  observed  that  in  travelling  round  the  chain  the  life- 
wave  is  steadily  involving  itself  more  and  more  in 
matter  as  it  descends  from  A  to  D,  but  is  rising  again 
and  casting,  off  successive  veils  of  matter  as  it  passes 
from  D  to  G. 

This  is  the  condition  of  affairs  during  the  fourth 
and  most  material  incarnation  of  each  chain.  But  in 
the  third  and  fifth  incarnations  each  chain  has  its  first 
and  seventh  planets  on  the  higher  mental,  its  second 
and  sixth  on  the  lower  mental,  its  third  and  fifth  on 
the  astral,  and  only  one  planet,  the  fourth,  on  the 
physical  plane.  The  second  and  sixth  incarnations  of 
each  chain  are  one  stage  higher;  their  fourth  planet 
is  upon  the  astral  plane,  while  the  third  and  fifth  are 
upon  the  lower  mental,  the  second  and  sixth  upon  the 
higher  mental  and  the  first  and  seventh  at  the  buddhic 
level.  The  first  and  seventh  incarnations  of  a  chain 
are  one  stage  higher  still,  in  that  their  lowest  planets 
are  on  the  lower  mental  plane  and  their  first  and 
seventh  planets  at  the  stage  which  we  call  nirvanic. 


186  THE  INNER  LIFE 

It  is  net  easy  for  us  to  attach  any  meaning  to  the 
idea  of  a  planet  upon  planes  so  exalted  as  the  nirvanic 
or  buddhic,  and  we  are  perhaps  scarcely  justified  in 
using  the  term.  All  that  we  mean  is  that  there  is  a 
certain  location  in  space  where  the  evolution  of  cer- 
tain groups  of  monads  is  taking  place  through  agencies 
which  work  on  those  exalted  levels. 

Each  of  these  seventy  planets  may  be  regarded  as 
having  a  definite  location  in  space  and  as  revolving 
round,  or  in  some  way  depending  upon,  our  sun.  Of 
these  seventy  planets  only  twelve  are  physical,  and 
even  of  those  twelve  one  is  not  yet  recognised  by 
science  and  two  others  have  only  lately  been  discovered. 

The  existence  of  Vulcan  was  accepted  by  some  as- 
tronomers a  century  ago,  but  as  it  cannot  now  be 
found,  the  scientific  men  of  the  present  day  hold  that 
the  earlier  observations  were  incorrect.  No  astrono- 
mer had  dreamt  of  the  two  planets  beyond  the  orbit 
of  Neptune  at  the  time  when  they  were  first  men- 
tioned in  Theosophical  writings,  but  now  their  exist- 
ence is  admitted  in  consequence  of  the  deflections  which 
they  have  produced  in  certain  cometary  orbits. 

Madame  Blavatsky  says  that  Neptune  is  not  in  our 
solar  system,  but  there  can  be  no  question  that  it  re- 
volves round  our  sun.  Madame  Blavatsky  therefore 
must  have  been  speaking  in  some  occult  or  symbolical 
sense  when  she  used  those  words.  From  the  occult 
point  of  view  also,  the  Neptunian  chain  is  clearly  part 
of  our  system,  being  one  of  the  ten  chains  which  com- 
pose it ;  so  we  are  unable  at  the  moment  to  attach  any 
meaning  to  Madame  Blavatsky's  statement.  That  does 
not  in  the  least  imply  that  it  is  really  meaningless  or 
inaccurate. 

We  have  frequently  found  that  passages  in  her 
writings,  which  we  had  been  for  a  long  time  com- 


THE  PLANETARY  CHAINS  187 

pelled  to  put  aside  as  incomprehensible  and  apparently 
contrary  to  known  facts,  had  nevertheless  a  definite 
meaning  and  a  certain  sense  in  which  they  were  true, 
though  these  were  discoverable  only  when  (by  pene- 
trating to  higher  planes)  fresh  aspects  of  the  subject 
were  brought  into  view.  No  doubt  in  due  time  this 
will  prove  to  be  the  case  with  this  enigmatical  state- 
ment about  Neptune. 

Besides  those  on  the  seventy  planets  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  there  are  other  evolutions  taking  place, 
every  inch  of  place  being  utilised.  Even  in  the  koilon 
itself  there  may  be  an  evolution  going  on  of  which  we 
know  nothing  and  can  imagine  nothing.  We  know  as 
yet  so  little  of  this  marvellous  system  to  which  we 
belong;  all  this  teaching  of  Theosophy  which  has  so 
changed  our  lives  is  but  the  lifting  of  a  tiny  corner  of 
the  veil.  All  space  is  filled  with  life,  and  there  are 
even  lower  orders  than  that  of  the  physical  plane.  It 
sometimes  happens  that  a  human  being  comes  into 
touch  with  that  lower  evolution,  but  that  is  always 
undesirable.  Yet  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  speak 
of  the  inhabitants  of  this  lower  world  as  wicked. 
Certainly  that  evolution  brings  harm  to  us  if  we  be- 
come entangled  with  it,  but  that  is  because  it  is  not 
meant  for  us. 

Of  the  seven  chains  that  have  physical  planets,  tak- 
ing them  in  order,  beginning  with  the  nearest  to  the 
sun  and  working  outwards,  we  have  first  Vulcan,  with 
only  one  physical  planet,  which  is  small  and  must  be 
very  hot.  The  Vulcan  chain  is  in  its  third  incarnation, 
but  we  are  given  to  understand  that  its  scheme  of  evo- 
lution is  not  destined  to  bring  the  entities  concerned 
with  it  to  as  high  a  level  as  will  be  ultimately  attained 
by  the  inhabitants  of  our  own  planet. 

Mercury  is  the  next  planet,  and  belongs  to  the 
earth-chain. 


188  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Venus  is  the  only  physical  planet  of  the  chain  of 
which  it  is  a  part.  It  is  in  the  seventh  round  of  its 
fifth  incarnation,  and  it  represents  the  most  advanced 
degree  of  evolution  yet  attained  by  humanity  in  this 
solar  system.  Being  so  far  advanced,  it  has  been  able 
to  afford  assistance  to  other  and  less  developed  evolu- 
tions; from  it,  as  we  know,  descended  the  Lords  of 
the  Flame,  who  gave  so  great  a  stimulus  to  the  pro- 
gress of  humanity  in  the  middle  of  our  third  root-race. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  the  astronomers  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  recorded  several  observa- 
tions of  a  satellite  of  Venus,  whereas  now  it  is  quite 
certain  that  no  such  orb  exists.  The  usual  suppo- 
sition is  that  those  earlier  astronomers  erred.  But 
this  is  scarcely  likely  in  view  of  the  number  and 
character  of  the  witnesses,  and  also  their  repeated  ob- 
servations. It  was  seen  by  astronomers  as  well  known 
as  Cassini  and  Short,  in  1761,  and  that  not  once  but 
many  times,  and  with  different  telescopes.  It  was  ob- 
served by  Scheuten  during  the  whole  of  its  transit  along 
with  Venus  in  the  same  year;  it  was  seen  four  times 
by  Montaigne,  and  again  in  1764  by  Rodkier,  Horre- 
bow  and  Montbaron.  It  was  estimated  to  have  a 
diameter  of  about  two  thousand  miles.  It  is  surely 
more  probable  that  all  these  astronomers  were  right  in 
their  observations,  for  we  are  told  that  in  our  seventh 
round  the  moon  will  disintegrate  and  we  shall  be  left 
without  a  satellite.  It  may  be  only  a  coincidence  that 
Venus  is  in  its  seventh  round,  but  it  is  a  curious  one. 

The  next  planets  are  our  Earth  and  Mars,  and  these 
two,  along  with  Mercury,  are  the  three  physical  planets 
of  a  chain  which  is  in  its  fourth  incarnation.  Our 
Earth  is  the  lowest  and  most  material  of  the  series — 
planet  D,  while  Mars  is  our  planet  C  and  Mercury  our 
planet  E.    A  good  many  of  the  more  advanced  mem- 


THE  PLANETARY  CHAINS  189 

bers  of  our  present  humanity  were  not  upon  the  planet 
Mars  when  the  life-wave  last  swept  over  it,  as  will  be 
explained  later;  but  the  great  bulk  of  the  human  race 
has  certainly  passed  through  a  series  of  incarnations 
on  that  planet,  and  we  have  left  behind  us  many  traces 
of  our  occupation,  of  which  the  present  inhabitants 
are  abundantly  availing  themselves.  When  our 
present  occupancy  of  the  earth  ends  for  a  time,  we 
shall  all  pass  on  to  the  somewhat  less  material  life  of 
the  planet  Mercury,  where  the  average  level  of  con- 
sciousness may  be  somewhat  more  extended  than  it 
is  here,  since  ordinary  humanity  will  then  possess 
what  is  now  called  etheric  sight.  There  are  no 
grounds  whatever,  so  far  as  I  know,  for  the  state- 
ment made  by  a  recent  writer  that  the  real  names  of 
Mercury  and  Venus  have  been  interchanged.  Indeed, 
we  know  a  great  deal  about  these  planets  which  makes 
the  idea  inconceivable. 

Next  come  the  asteroids — material  which  will 
make  a  world  some  time;  but  we  do  not  count  them 
now. 

The  giant  of  the  solar  system,  Jupiter,  has  a  chain 
of  its  own.  It  is  in  an  early  stage  of  its  evolution, 
being  very  much  too  hot  for  life,  such  as  we  know, 
to  exist  on  its  surface;  but  its  satellites  are  inhabited. 
Its  surface  has  seas  of  molten  metals,  and  similar  con- 
ditions exist  on  all  the  outside  giant  planets.  It  has 
a  density  about  that  of  water,  if  you  take  the  whole 
mass ;  but  what  we  see  is  really  the  outside  of  a  mass 
of  cloud  thousands  of  miles  in  depth — so  we  get  a 
false  estimate  of  the  actual  size  of  the  planet  itself. 
The  Jupiter  scheme  is  at  present  in  the  second  round 
of  its  third  incarnation.  We  are  told  that  this  sys- 
tem will  eventually  raise  its  humanity  to  an  extremely 
high  level. 


190  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Next  we  come  to  Saturn,  with  its  wonderful  system 
of  rings  and  satellites.  It  is  the  only  physical  planet 
of  its  chain.  It  also  is  in  an  early  round  of  its  third 
incarnation,  and  we  understand  that  the  development 
connected  with  it  is  slower  than  most  of  the  others, 
but  that  it  will  ultimately  reach  exalted  levels. 

As  to  the  schemes  to  which  the  outer  planets  Uranus 
and  Neptune  belong,  we  have  but  little  information, 
though  we  know  that  the  latter  is  in  its  fourth  incar- 
nation, because  of  the  fact  that  to  it  belong  also  the 
two  other  physical  planets  whose  orbits  lie  outside  its 
own.  The  conditions  existing  on  all  these  gigantic 
outer  members  of  the  solar  systems  must  be  altogether 
so  entirely  cifferent  from  those  on  the  small  inner 
planets  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to  form  any 
idea  of  the  sort  of  life  which  must  be  lived  by  their 
inhabitants,  even  in  the  future  when  the  globes  have 
cooled  down. 


Successive  Life-Waves 

The  conception  of  the  successive  life-waves  which 
pour  out  from  the  Logos  should  not  be  a  difficult  one, 
yet  it  frequently  happens  that  some  confusion  seems 
to  arise  in  the  mind  of  the  student  in  connection 
with  it. 

Perhaps  this  comes  partially  from  the  fact  that  the 
term  "life-wave"  has  been  employed  in  our  literature 
in  three  distinct  senses.  First,  it  has  been  used  to 
denote  the  three  great  outpourings  of  Divine  Life  by 
means  of  which  our  solar  system  came  into  existence 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  191 

— by  which  its  evolution  is  carried  on.  Secondly,  it 
has  been  applied  to  the  successive  impulsions  of  which 
the  second  outpouring  is  formed ;  and  it  is  in  this  sense 
principally  that  I  shall  employ  the  term  now.  Thirdly, 
the  expression  has  been  accepted  as  signifying  the 
transference  of  life  from  one  planet  of  our  chain  to 
another  in  the  course  of  evolution. 

A  life-wave  of  this  third  type  does  not  at  all  cor- 
respond to  the  life-wave  of  the  second  type,  but  con- 
sists of  synchronous  portions  of  seven  of  the  latter, 
treated  as  though  they  constituted  a  single  entity.  As 
we  all  know,  we  have  with  us  at  the  present  time  seven 
kingdoms  in  manifestation — the  human,  the  animal, 
the  vegetable,  the  mineral,  and  the  three  elemental 
kingdoms  which  precede  the  mineral. 

We  must  realise  that  all  these  are  manifestations 
of  the  same  life — the  one  life  of  the  Logos  manifest- 
ing in  that  second  great  outpouring  which  comes  from 
His  second  aspect  after  the  primitive  matter  has  been 
prepared  for  its  reception  by  the  action  of  the  first 
outpouring  which  comes  from  the  third  aspect  (see 
The  Christian  Creed,  p.  40).  That  second  outpouring 
comes  forth  in  a  series  of  successive  waves,  following 
one  another  as  the  waves  of  the  sea  follow  one  an- 
other. Each  of  these  waves  has  reached  its  present 
stage  by  passing  through  all  the  earlier  stages,  and  in 
each  of  those  it  has  spent  a  period  of  time  correspond- 
ing to  the  life  of  a  chain  of  seven  worlds,  sometimes 
called  a  manvantara. 

This  Sanskrit  word  manvantara  literally  means  the 
period  between  two  Manus,  and  so  it  might  be  applied 
at  various  levels.  We  see  from  The  Secret  Doctrine 
that  each  root-race  has  its  Manu,  a  great  adept  who 
takes  charge  of  it,  and  superintends  its  formation  and 
growth.     But  there  is  also  a   Manu  for  the  world- 


192  THE  INNER  LIFE 

period  which  includes  the  seven  root-races;  and  yet 
again  there  is  a  still  greater  Manu  who  superintends 
the  progress  of  the  life-wave  (using  that  term  in  its 
third  sense)  through  all  the  seven  planets  of  the  chain; 
and  since  one  complete  journey  through  all  those  seven 
globes  has  been  called  a  round,  He  is  spoken  of  as  the 
Round-Manu. 

Seven  such  rounds  complete  one  life-period  for  a 
planetary  chain — one  incarnation  of  the  chain,  as  it 
were;  and  over  this  enormous  period  there  is  a  Great 
One  who  presides,  and  to  Him  also  this  title  of  Manu 
is  accorded.  Higher  still  there  is  One  who  presides 
over  the  seven  successive  chains,  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  the  seven  incarnations  of  our  chain,  making 
one  complete  scheme  of  evolution;  but  He  is  usually 
spoken  of  not  as  a  Manu,  but  as  the  Logos  of  seven 
chains,  or  sometimes  as  the  Planetary  Logos.  So  we 
have  here  a  graduated  hierarchy  of  mighty  adepts,  ex- 
tending up  to  Divinity  itself. 

It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  the  term  manvantara 
might  indicate  various  periods  of  time,  corresponding 
to  the  levels  at  which  it  was  employed;  but  in  our 
Theosophical  literature  it  has  generally  been  used  to 
indicate  the  duration  of  one  chain — the  time  occupied 
by  the  life-wave  in  making  seven  rounds.  To  the 
greater  period  of  the  seven  successive  incarnations  of 
the  chain,  the  name  of  mahamanvantara  (which  means 
simply  great  manvantara)  has  sometimes  been  given. 

The  following  table  may  be  of  use  to  our  students, 
as  summarising  the  system  of  evolution : 

7  Branch  Races  make  . .      .  .    One  Sub-race. 


7  Sub-races  make 
7  Root-races  make 
7  World-periods  make 
7  Rounds  make 
7  Chain-periods  make 
10  Planetary  Schemes  make 


One   Root-race. 

One  World-period. 

One  Round. 

One  Chain-period. 

One  Planetary  Scheme. 

Our  Solar  System. 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  333 

It  is  scarcely  practical  for  us  at  present  to  endeavour 
to  estimate  in  years  the  exact  length  of  these  enor- 
mous expanses  of  time.  In  exoteric  Hindu  books 
definite  numbers  are  given,  but  Madame  Blavatsky 
tells  us  that  it  is  impossible  to  rely  fully  upon  these, 
as  other  and  esoteric  considerations  are  involved, 
which  the  writers  do  not  take  into  account.  We  have 
no  direct  information  upon  these  points,  but  there  is 
some  reason  to  suspect  that  the  time  of  the  rounds 
is  not  an  invariable  quantity,  but  that  some  are 
shorter  than  others.  It  has  been  thought  that  those 
in  front  of  us  will  probably  not  be  so  long  as  those 
through  which  we  have  passed;  but  here  again  we 
have  no  certain  information,  and  it  seems  useless  to 
speculate. 

At  all  these  stages  there  are  always  seven  life-waves 
in  action.  In  every  one  of  these  chains  is  a  human 
kingdom,  and  it  is  always  accompanied  by  its  broth- 
ers, an  animal,  a  vegetable  and  a  mineral  kingdom. 
But  each  of  these  is  steadily  evolving;  so  that  the 
life-wave  which  is  ensouling  the  animal  kingdom  of 
the  present  day  will  in  the  next  chain  have  arrived  at 
the  human  level,  and  will  provide  the  causal  bodies 
for  the  humanity  of  that  chain.  In  the  same  way  the 
life-wave  which  ensouls  our  vegetable  kingdom  now 
will  ensoul  the  animal  kingdom  then,  and  so  on. 

It  of  course  follows  from  this  that  we  were  the 
animal  kingdom  of  the  moon-chain,  and  the  vegetable 
kingdom  of  the  chain  previous  to  that.  That  is  not 
precisely  an  accurate  method  of  expression,  because 
we  as  separate  egos  did  not  exist  then ;  but  that  wave 
of  essence  which  in  the  first  chain  ensouled  the  mineral 
kingdom,  in  the  second  chain  the  vegetable,  and  in  the 
third  chain  the  animal,  has  now  been  employed  in 
the  formation  of  those  causal  bodies  which  we  are 
inhabiting  at  the  present  day. 


194  THE  INNER  LIFE 

What  then  will  be  the  future  progress  of  that 
wave,  and  how  will  it  appear  in  the  next  chain?  It 
will  not  appear  there  at  all,  for  we  must  remember 
that  at  the  close  of  this  human  evolution  man  finds 
always  before  him  the  seven  paths  which  open  the 
way  to  still  further  development.  I  have  tried  to  ex- 
plain these,  so  far  as  they  may  at  present  be  de- 
scribed, in  the  concluding  chapter  of  Invisible  Help- 
ers. 

I  need  not  repeat  here  what  I  then  wrote,  but  I 
may  add  to  it  a  fragment  of  information  which  has 
since  come  to  my  knowledge.  One  of  those  paths, 
which  we  had  then  to  leave  blank,  leads  to  what  we 
have  called  a  staff  appointment.  Every  general  has, 
quite  apart  from  the  regular  officers  who  hold  various 
commands  under  him,  a  special  set  of  officers  who 
form  his  staff,  whose  duty  it  is  to  be  in  personal  at- 
tendance upon  him,  and  to  be  ready  at  any  moment 
to  do  anything  that  he  may  require,  or  to  fill  any 
vacancy  that  may  occur.  The  Solar  Logos  also  has 
His  staff — a  number  of  adepts  who  are  not  in  the  ser- 
vice of  any  particular  chain,  yet  ever  prepared  to  be 
sent  to  the  aid  of  any  that  need  assistance.  To  join 
this  body  is  one  of  the  seven  possibilities  which  lie 
before  him  who  has  "reached  the  further  shore." 

When  the  time  comes  for  our  chain  to  disintegrate 
and  for  the  life  from  it  to  pass  into  the  fifth  chain, 
we  shall  already  have  moved  on  to  a  stage  beyond  the 
human,  along  one  or  other  of  these  seven  paths.  Con- 
sequently the  humanity  which  will  commence  as  primi- 
tive man  in  the  fifth  chain  will  not  be  ourselves  at 
all,  but  will  be  the  wave  next  behind  us — that  which  is 
ensouling  our  present  animal  kingdom. 

In  the  same  way  our  vegetable  monad  will  have 
evolved  a  stage  higher,  and  will  ensoul  the  animal 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  195 

kingdom  of  that  new  chain;  while  the  life- wave 
which  is  now  animating  the  mineral  kingdom  will  by 
that  time  have  risen  to  the  level  of  the  vegetable 
kingdom.  Thus  we  see  that  of  the  seven  life-waves 
which  we  now  know,  six  will  be  present  in  the  fifth 
chain,  but  each  will  have  gained  a  stage  in  its  de- 
velopment. 

Our  present  human  life-wave,  having  obtained  the 
object  of  its  immersion  into  matter,  has  passed  out 
of  this  series  of  chains  altogether,  though  some  of 
those  who  were  its  members  may  still  retain  a  vol- 
untary connection  with  it  for  the  purpose  of  help- 
ing its  evolution.  But  since  each  of  our  waves  has 
moved  on  a  stage,  how  is  the  place  of  the  hindmost 
supplied?  Are  we  to  suppose  that  the  first  elemental 
kingdom  will  no  longer  be  represented  in  the  new 
chain  ?  By  no  means ;  for  we  find  that  a  fresh  life- 
wave  from  the  Logos  is  following  close  behind  the 
others,  and  so  this  new  influx  completes  the  seven. 

Precisely  the  same  process  has  taken  place  in  con- 
nection with  each  chain  in  succession.  In  each  of 
them  one  life-wave  has  attained  its  goal,  and  passed 
off  through  seven  channels  to  some  entirely  higher 
form  of  manifestation;  and  each  of  those  behind  it 
has  moved  forward  one  stage,  and  the  place  of  the 
hindmost  has  in  each  case  been  filled  by  a  fresh  influx 
of  life  from  the  Logos. 

Each  of  these  waves  enters  in  each  chain-period 
at  the  lowest  level  of  the  kingdom  which  it  is  en- 
souling, and  passes  out  of  that  kingdom  at  its  high- 
est point.  A  fresh  influx  of  life  from  the  Logos 
enters  the  first  elemental  kingdom  in  each  chain,  and 
there  are  six  such  influxes  in  our  scheme,  so  that  we 
have  altogether  thirteen  successive  life-waves  at 
work  in  this  scheme  of  seven  chains,  though  never 


196  THE  INNER  LIFE 

more  than  seven  of  them  are  in  operation  simul- 
taneously. All  are  moving  steadily  onward  but  always 
preserving  the  same  distance  between  them,  and  we 
can  take  up  any  particular  wave  at  any  point  in  its 
progress  and  follow  it  backwards  or  forwards  as  we 
desire. 

Take  for  example  the  seventh  of  these  waves.  It 
enters  into  the  first  incarnation  of  the  chain  as  the 
first  elemental  kingdom;  in  the  second  chain  it  has 
reached  the  level  of  the  second  elemental  kingdom, 
and  in  the  lunar  chain  it  ensouls  the  third.  In  our 
present  chain  it  animates  our  mineral  kingdom,  while 
in  the  fifth  and  sixth  chains  it  will  ensoul  respectively 
the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms.  In  the  seventh 
chain  it  will  arrive  at  the  level  of  humanity,  and  will 
then  pass  off  through  its  seven  channels,  as  the  other 
humanities  have  done.  We  have  then  the  complete 
history  of  this  life-wave  before  us,  from  the  time 
when  it  emerged  into  manifestation  in  the  first  ele- 
mental kingdom,  until  it  is  again  attaining  divine 
levels  at  the  end  of  its  appointed  evolution. 

We  have  not  before  us  in  our  scheme  the  complete 
evolution  of  any  other  wave  than  this.  If,  for 
example,  we  trace  back  our  own  life-wave,  we  shall 
find  that  it  ensouled  the  animal  kingdom  in  the  moon- 
chain,  the  vegetable  kingdom  in  the  second  chain, 
and  the  mineral  kingdom  in  the  first  chain.  Where 
then  did  it  gain  the  evolution  of  the  three  elemental 
kingdoms?  For  it  must  obviously  have  advanced 
through  those  stages  before  it  manifested  as  the 
mineral.  It  has  passed  through  them  in  some  pre- 
vious scheme  of  chains — we  know  not  where  or  when. 
It  is  evident  that  the  only  entirely  new  impulse  in 
that  first  chain  of  our  scheme  was  the  seventh  life- 
wave,  for  all  the  others  which  form  part  of  that  first 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  197 

chain  had  already  gone  through  some  portion  of 
their  evolution  in  anterior  schemes  of  worlds.  Its 
humanity  must  evidently  have  passed  through  the  six 
antecedent  stages  in  that  unknown  past,  and  it  came 
here  only  to  acquire  the  finishing  touch  to  its  educa- 
tion which  prepared  it  to  pass  off  along  the  seven 
paths  which  lay  open  before  it. 

But  our  life-waves  stretch  onward  into  the  future 
as  well  as  back  into  the  past.  The  eighth  wave,  for 
example,  which  entered  for  the  first  time  in  the 
second  chain  as  a  fresh  impulse  from  the  Divine  Life, 
has  no  time  in  our  scheme  of  evolution  to  reach  the 
human  level.  In  our  present  chain  it  is  ensouling  the 
third  elemental  kingdom,  and  causing  us  a  great  deal 
of  trouble  in  the  shape  of  desire-elementals.  In  the 
seventh  chain  that  wave  will  be  ensouling  the  animal 
kingdom,  and  it  will  therefore  attain  humanity  in  the 
first  chain  of  some  unknown  scheme  of  globes,  hidden 
at  present  in  the  womb  of  the  future. 

Naturally  the  remaining  waves,  from  the  ninth  to 
the  thirteenth,  are  also  unfinished,  so  that  out  of  all 
the  waves  which  use  our  scheme  as  the  theatre  of  their 
evolution  only  one  finds  time  to  complete  all  its  stages 
— a  fact  which,  if  we  can  realise  all  that  it  involves, 
gives  us  a  deeply  impressive  illustration  of  the  vast- 
ness  of  the  resources  of  nature,  a  glimpse  into  the 
illimitable  eternities  through  which,  never  hastening 
yet  never  resting,  her  unfoldment  proceeds  with  such 
splendid  precision. 

Now  that  we  have  clearly  in  our  minds  the  steady 
progress  of  these  life-waves,  we  must  immediately 
proceed  to  modify  our  conception  by  the  introduction 
into  it  of  another  important  factor.  In  each  case  of 
transference  from  one  kingdom  to  another,  there  is 
always  a  certain  part  of  the  life-wave  which  does  not 


198  THE  INNER  LIFE 

succeed  in  passing,  and  is  therefore  left  behind.  We 
may  perhaps  understand  that  most  easily  if  we  begin 
by  thinking  of  the  future  of  our  own  humanity. 

We  know  that  the  goal  set  before  us  is  the  attain- 
ment of  that  level  of  initiation  which  has  been  called 
adeptship — the  position  of  the  asekha,  "the  one  who 
has  no  more  to  learn"  with  regard  to  our  planetary 
chain.  But  we  also  know  that  it  will  not  be  the  whole 
of  humanity  that  will  succeed  in  this  lofty  aim,  but 
only  a  certain  part  of  it.  We  are  told  that  in  the 
middle  of  the  next  round  a  separation  will  occur  be- 
tween those  souls  who  are  strong  enough  to  under- 
take the  higher  stages  of  evolution  and  those  who  are 
not. 

This  separation  has  been  prefigured  by  the  many 
legends  of  a  "last  judgment"  at  which  the  future 
destiny  of  the  souls  for  this  aeon  would  be  decided. 
The  diseased  imagination  of  the  mediaeval  monk,  al- 
ways seeking  an  opportunity  to  introduce  grotesquely 
exaggerated  horrors  into  his  creed  in  order  to  terrify 
an  incredibly  ignorant  peasantry  into  more  liberal 
donations  for  the  support  of  Mother-Church,  distorted 
into  "eternal  damnation"  the  perfectly  simple  idea  of 
asonian  suspension. 

Those  who  are  left  behind  at  this  period  have 
sometimes  been  described  as  "the  failures  of  the  fifth 
round,"  though  perhaps  even  this  is  somewhat  too  harsh 
a  term.  There  may  well  be  some  among  them  who 
by  greater  exertion  might  have  qualified  themselves 
to  pass  onward,  and  these  are  rightly  spoken  of  as 
failures;  but  the  majority  will  be  left  behind  simply 
because  they  are  too  young  to  go  on,  and  so  not  strong 
enough  for  the  more  difficult  work. 

The  facts  of  the  case  may  be  stated  quite  simply. 
The  lower  classes  of  monads  passed  only  gradually 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  199 

from  the  animal  kingdom  into  the  human  during  the 
earlier  half  of  our  present  chain-period.  Some  of 
them  are  still,  consequently,  at  an  early  stage  of  the 
human  evolution,  and  are  therefore  exceedingly  un- 
likely to  overtake  the  classes  which  are  so  far  in  ad- 
vance of  them.  We  have  been  given  to  understand 
that  it  is  just  possible  for  even  the  lowest  savage  to 
reach  before  the  middle  of  the  fifth  round  the  level 
necessary  for  continued  evolution,  but  in  order  to  do 
this  he  must  never  once  fail  to  take  advantage  of 
each  opportunity  as  it  is  offered  to  him,  and  the  num- 
ber who  will  do  this  will  be  infinitesimally  small.  It 
is  calculated  that  the  proportion  who  will  be  prepared 
to  go  on  will  amount  to  about  three-fifths  of  the  total 
population  of  the  earth  (not  merely  of  the  physical 
population,  it  will  be  understood,  but  of  the  total 
number  of  egos  who  constitute  the  human  life-wave 
evolving  through  this  chain)  while  the  remaining  two- 
fifths  will  be  left  behind. 

The  surroundings  in  the  world  at  that  time  will  be 
specially  adapted  for  the  rapid  progress  of  the  more 
advanced  egos,  and  will  therefore  be  wholly  unsuit- 
able for  entities  at  a  much  lower  stage  of  evolution, 
as  the  gross  vibrations  of  violent  passion  and  of  strong 
coarse  feelings  which  are  necessary  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  inert  and  half-formed  astral  body  of  the 
savage  will  be  no  longer  available.  We  can  easily 
imagine  many  ways  in  which  this  unsuitability  would 
show  itself.  In  a  world  of  high  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual development,  where  war  and  the  slaughter  of  ani- 
mals have  long  been  things  of  the  past,  the  existence 
of  savage  races,  full  of  undisciplined  passions  and  de- 
sire for  conflict,  would  obviously  introduce  many 
serious  difficulties  and  complications;  and  though  no 
doubt  means  might  be  devised  for  their  repression, 


200  THE  INNER  LIFE 

that    very    repression    would    debar    them    from    the 
activities  requisite  for  their  early  stage  of  evolution. 

Obviously,  therefore,  the  kindest  and  best  thing  to 
do  with  those  who  are  thus  backward  is  simply  to 
drop  them  out  from  this  evolution,  and  let  them  pre- 
pare to  take  their  place  in  next  year's  class — in  the 
next  planetary  chain.  Such  entities  will  not  suffer 
in  any  way;  they  will  simply  have  a  very  prolonged 
period  of  rest  in  such  heaven-life  as  they  may  be 
capable  of  appreciating,  and  no  doubt,  even  though 
their  consciousness  during  this  period  will  probably 
be  but  partially  awakened,  a  certain  amount  of  inner 
progress  will  be  going  on. 

From  that  condition  they  will  descend  into  the 
earlier  stages  of  the  evolution  of  the  next  chain,  and 
will  be  among  the  leaders  of  primitive  humanity 
there.  We  should  not  think  of  them  as  in  any  way 
put  back,  but  merely  as  assigned  to  the  position  to 
which  they  really  belong,  where  their  progress  is 
easy  and  certain.  It  is  to  this  class  that  Madame 
Blavatsky  referred  when  she  spoke  of  vast  numbers 
of  "lost  souls";  though  this  term  "lost  souls,"  when 
employed  in  this  connection,  sometimes  misleads  stu- 
dents who  have  not  yet  grasped  the  full  splendour 
and  certainty  of  the  evolutionary  scheme. 

We  may  think  then  of  each  life-wave  in  its  passage 
through  the  chain  as  breaking  up  into  wavelets.  Con- 
sider what  will  be  the  progress  made  by  our  own  life- 
wave.  Broadly  speaking,  this  represents  the  animal 
kingdom  of  the  moon,  though  the  failures  of  the 
lunar  humanity  have  naturally  joined  it,  and  may  be 
expected  to  be  among  its  leaders. 

The  whole  of  the  wave  which  ensouled  that  lunar 
animal  kingdom  should  theoretically  have  entered 
humanity  during  the  earlier  part  of  this  chain,  and 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  201 

should  by  the  end  of  the  seventh  round  attain  the 
goal  appointed  for  it. 

We  who  are  now  human  beings  in  this  chain 
ought  all  of  us  to  attain  adeptship,  and  pass  away 
from  this  scheme  of  evolution  altogether  by  one  of 
the  seven  paths  which  open  before  the  adept,  while 
what  is  now  our  animal  kingdom  ought  by  the  end  of 
this  chain  to  attain  individualisation,  and  therefore 
to  be  ready  to  furnish  the  humanity  for  the  next 
chain,  the  fifth  of  the  scheme. 

We  know,  however,  that  two-fifths  of  our  humanity 
will  fall  out  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  round,  because 
it  is  obviously  too  far  behind  the  rest  to  enable  it 
even  with  the  greatest  efforts  to  attain  the  goal  dur- 
ing this  chain.  This  two-fifths  will  enter  the  next 
chain  along  with  the  members  of  our  present  animal 
kingdom,  and  will  therefore  constitute  part  of  that 
future  humanity. 

One  of  the  great  reasons  why  the  division  between 
the  more  advanced  and  the  less  advanced  must  be 
made  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  round  is  that  the  later 
races  will  be  in  much  closer  touch  with  the  adepts 
and  the  great  devas  than  we  are  now.  It  will  there- 
fore be  necessary  for  them  to  hold  themselves  always 
in  an  impressible  condition,  in  readiness  to  receive  and 
respond  to  an  outpouring  of  influences.  This  in  its 
turn  requires  that  they  shall  live  a  peaceful  and  con- 
templative life,  which  would  be  an  impossibility  if 
there  were  still  left  in  the  world  savage  races  who 
would  attack  and  kill  the  man  in  a  state  of  contem- 
plation. The  more  powerful  vibrations  of  that  time 
would  not  rouse  the  higher  nature  of  the  savage,  but 
would  only  stimulate  and  intensify  his  lower  passions, 
so  that  he  would  gain  nothing  by  being  on  earth  at 
that  period,  while  he  would  make  impossible  the 
progress  of  the  more  developed  people. 


202  THE  INNER  LIFE 

But  the  other  three-fifths  of  our  present  humanity, 
which  may  be  described  as  successful  in  so  far  as  it 
does  not  drop  out  at  the  day  of  judgment  in  the 
fifth  round,  will  yet  not  all  of  it  succeed,  in  the 
sense  of  attaining  the  asekha  level.  It  is  thought 
that  probably  about  one-fifth  of  the  whole  number 
(that  is  to  say,  one-third  of  those  who  have  not 
dropped  out)  will  fully  achieve;  but  that  means 
that  two-thirds  of  the  successes  will  still  at  the  end 
of  our  chain  of  worlds  have  further  work  to  do,  be- 
fore they  have  reached  the  level  intended  for  them. 
They  also  will  have  to  enter  the  next  chain,  though 
they  will  not  need  the  earlier  stages  of  its  evolution; 
so  they  will  probably  appear  at  about  its  middle  point, 
much  as  the  higher  classes  of  monads  who  came  over 
from  the  moon  entered  our  present  evolution  at  its 
middle  point.  The  matter  will,  however,  be  compli- 
cated for  them  by  the  fact  that,  just  as  on  this  chain 
the  point  set  before  us  for  attainment  is  higher  than 
that  of  the  moon-chain,  so  will  the  level  of  achieve- 
ment expected  on  the  fifth  chain  be  higher  than  ours. 
With  that,  however,  we  have  no  concern  for  the  mo- 
ment. 

The  actual  distribution  at  the  end  of  our  planetary 
chain  will  probably  be  into  several  well-defined  classes, 
somewhat  as  follows;  though  obviously  each  of  these 
might  be  further  subdivided: 

1.  Those  who,  having  intelligently  studied  evolu- 
tion and  determined  to  take  the  shorter  and  steeper 
Path  to  the  goal,  have  already  attained  adeptship  in 
previous  rounds. 

2.  Those  who  attain  the  asekha  level  in  the  seventh 
round.  These  are  the  highest  class  of  the  men  who 
have  moved  along  with  the  ordinary  stream  of  evolu- 
tion— the  vanguard  of  those  who  have  followed  the 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  205 

usual  path.     They  may  be  taken  as  corresponding, 
for  our  chain,  to  the  first  class  of  the  moon-men. 

3.  Those  who  have  fallen  short  of  this  perfect  at- 
tainment, but  yet  have  succeeded  in  reaching  the 
arhat  level  in  the  seventh  round.  They  correspond 
for  our  chain  to  the  second  class  of  the  moon-men, 
and  will  need  very  few  births  in  the  next  incarna- 
tion of  the  chain  before  they  also  gain  the  level  of 
liberation. 

4.  Those  who,  while  they  passed  the  examination 
at  the  middle  of  the  fifth  round,  have  not  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  raising  themselves  above  the  three  lower 
levels  of  the  Path  Proper.  These  may  perhaps  be 
taken  to  correspond  for  our  chain  with  the  animal- 
men  of  the  moon,  who  had  only  just  contrived  to 
separate  themselves  from  the  animal  kingdom,  and 
consequently  had  much  preparatory  work  to  do  in  the 
new  chain. 

5.  Those  who,  while  they  succeeded  in  attaining 
humanity  in  our  earth-chain,  yet  failed  to  raise  them- 
selves sufficiently  to  justify  their  continuance  in  that 
chain  after  the  middle  of  the  fifth  round.  There  will, 
no  doubt,  be  several  subdivisions  or  classes  among 
these. 

6.  Those  who  have  failed  altogether  to  gain  the  level 
of  humanity.  These  will  be  some  of  the  very  lowest 
of  the  monads,  who  had  only  just  reached  the  ani- 
mal kingdom  on  the  moon,  and  have  been  slowly 
rising  during  the  earth-chain,  but  have  not  suc- 
ceeded in  attaining  individualisation. 

It  is  not  only  in  the  case  of  humanity  that  we  find 
this  failure  to  attain  the  destined  level.  The  same 
thing  appears  to  happen  in  connection  with  every 
kingdom  all  through  the  course  of  evolution.  While 
the    majority    of    each    wave    of    monads    fulfil    the 


204  THE  INNER  LIFE 

destiny  appointed  for  them,  there  is  in  each  a  mi- 
nority who  fall  behind,  and  a  much  smaller  minority 
who  run  far  in  advance  of  that  destiny.  For  example, 
just  as  a  few  men  are  now  rising  far  above  their 
fellows  and  attaining  adeptship,  so  a  few  animals 
are  even  already  breaking  away  from  their  group- 
souls  and  becoming  individualised,  though  the  great 
body  of  the  animal  life-wave  will  arrive  at  indi- 
vidualisation  only  towards  the  end  of  the  seventh 
round,  and  will  form  the  humanity  of  the  fifth  chain. 
The  men  who  are  approaching  adeptship  are  always 
those  who  are  in  close  touch  with  the  existing  adepts 
as  Their  pupils;  the  animals  who  are  approaching 
humanity  are  usually  those  who  are  in  close  touch 
with  the  existing  humanity  as  pets  specially  de- 
veloped in  affection  and  intelligence. 

In  the  earlier  days  of  the  Theosophical  teaching 
we  supposed  that  even  if  an  animal  by  specially  rapid 
development  should  become  individualised  here  and 
now,  he  would  still  have  to  wait  until  the  next  chain 
before  he  could  secure  a  human  body.  Later  investi- 
gations, however,  have  shown  us  that  exceptions  to 
this  rule  are  at  this  stage  still  possible,  and  that  ani- 
mals who  are  fortunate  enough  to  attain  individual- 
isation  during  this  present  world-period  may  be  ac- 
commodated with  primitive  human  bodies  at  the 
commencement  of  the  occupation  by  our  life-wave 
of  the  next  planet  in  our  present  chain.  It  is  ob- 
vious that  the  number  of  animals  prepared  to  take 
advantage  of  this  (which,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  ap- 
pears likely  to  be  their  final  opportunity  of  entering 
the  human  life  of  this  chain)  must  be  relatively  ex- 
ceedingly small;  but  still  it  is  a  possibility  which  we 
must  take  into  account  if  we  wish  correctly  to  com- 
prehend the  course  of  evolution. 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE -WAVES  205 

I  have  once  seen  a  case  in  which  there  were  special 
features  that  made  an  even  earlier  incarnation  possi- 
ble— a  case  of  an  animal  which  had  shown  in  earth- 
life  not  only  great  intelligence,  but  also  unusually 
strong  devotion  to  his  human  friend,  a  devotion  which 
of  course  continued  in  the  astral  life  and  was  even 
stronger  there  than  ever.  The  animal's  power  of 
definite  thought  was  such  that  during  life  he  fre- 
quently travelled  great  distances  in  his  astral  body 
when  asleep,  to  visit  his  master  on  his  journeys.  In 
this  case  definite  progress  was  made  in  the  astral 
life  after  death,  and  the  response  to  our  efforts  was 
much  greater  than  we  had  hoped,  for  the  astral  life 
gave  us  a  better  opportunity  than  was  possible  on  the 
physical  plane  to  grasp  the  exact  limits  of  the  ani- 
mal's lines  of  thought.  They  were  few,  narrow  and 
curiously  limited;  but  yet  they  extended  much  fur- 
ther along  their  lines  than  one  would  suppose. 

Certain  new  lines  of  thought  opened  up  in  the 
astral  life,  and  the  developments  were  exceedingly 
interesting.  An  almost  immediate  incarnation  in 
this  world  was  clearly  possible,  but  there  were  some 
curious  combinations  which  made  the  matter  diffi- 
cult to  arrange.  The  animal  would  have  been  a 
primitive  savage  in  many  ways,  and  yet  could  only 
have  been  incarnated  in  immediate  personal  relation 
with  his  master,  for  whom  his  attachment  was  so 
strong  that  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  keep 
him  away  from  him.  This  presented  serious  diffi- 
culties, but  still  they  might  somehow  have  been  over- 
come, but  for  the  fact  that  it  was  impossible  to 
guarantee  the  sex  of  the  savage! 

Presumably  among  the  animals  that  succeed  there 
will  also  be  various  classes,  corresponding  in  a  gen- 
eral way  in  this  evolution  to  the  various  classes  of 


206  THE  INNER  LIFE 

monads  in  the  lunar  evolution;  and  some  of  the  ani- 
mal essence  at  present  ensouling  the  lowest  forms  of 
life  will  certainly  fail  to  attain  the  human  level  in 
this  chain,  and  will  therefore  correspond  in  the  ani- 
mal kingdom  to  our  "failures  of  the  fifth  round."  As 
to  whether  these  forms  also  will  disappear  from  the 
earth  at  that  same  period  in  the  fifth  round  we  have 
no  direct  information,  but  analogy  would  seem  to  re- 
quire that  this  should  be  so.  The  same  differentia- 
tion into  classes,  according  to  the  measure  of  suc- 
cess achieved,  has  been  observed  in  connection  with 
all  the  lower  kingdoms,  so  that  in  reality  each  life- 
wave  ought  to  be  symbolised  as  breaking  up  con- 
stantly into  ripples  or  wavelets,  some  of  which  in 
time  join  the  preceding  or  succeeding  waves,  though 
the  majority  move  steadily  along  their  appointed 
course. 

The  seven  life- waves  which  ensoul  our  seven  king- 
doms have  always  for  their  principal  field  of  action 
the  planet  to  which  the  attention  of  the  Logos  is  for 
the  moment  directed;  but  a  certain  small  proportion 
of  their  action  is  always  manifesting  in  the  other 
worlds  of  the  chain  also.  Thus,  although  the  at- 
tention of  the  Planetary  Logos  is  now  fixed  upon  our 
earth,  there  are  yet  representatives  of  all  the  king- 
doms simultaneously  existing  upon  every  one  of  the 
six  other  globes  of  our  chain.  These  are  often  de- 
scribed as  the  seed  from  which  the  forms  will  de- 
velope  when  the  life-wave  reaches  the  planet — that 
is  to  say,  when  the  special  attention  of  the  Planetary 
Logos  is  turned  to  it  once  more. 

These  forms  have  remained  in  existence  upon  their 
respective  planets  ever  since  they  were  first  filled  by 
the  lunar  animal-men  in  the  first  round,  and  in  this 
way  the  trouble  of  what  might  be  called  fresh  crea- 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  207 

tion  for  each  globe  in  each  round  is  avoided.  The 
life  ensouling  these  forms  during  the  comparative 
obscuration  of  those  planets  is  still  part  of  the  great 
wave,  and  is  still  moving  onward  in  connection  with 
it.  It  serves  other  functions  besides  that  of  provid- 
ing the  seed  for  the  incoming  wave,  since  it  is  also 
employed  as  a  means  of  more  rapid  evolution  for  cer- 
tain classes  of  monads. 

It  is  by  the  special  treatment  thus  given  that  it  is 
possible  for  the  second-class  monad  to  overtake  the 
first  class  and  become  one  of  its  members.  Under 
certain  conditions  of  strong  desire  for  advancement, 
if  he  is  seen  to  be  striving  with  exceptional  vigour 
to  improve  himself,  he  may  be  separated  from  the 
great  masses  of  his  fellows  on  this  planet,  and  passed 
by  the  authorities  into  what  is  called  the  Inner 
Round,  and  may  take  his  next  incarnation  among  the 
limited  population  of  Mercury.  In  that  case  he  will 
spend  there  about  the  same  time  that  he  would  other- 
wise have  devoted  to  incarnations  in  one  root-race,  and 
will  then  pass  on  to  the  astral  planet  F.  After  a 
similar  stay  there  he  will  be  transferred  to  globes 
G,  A  and  B  successively,  and  then  to  Mars  and  to  the 
Earth. 

As  in  each  of  these  spheres  he  will  have  made  a 
stay  about  equivalent  to  the  normal  period  of  a  root- 
race,  the  life-wave  will  have  left  the  Earth  before  his 
return,  but  he  will  overtake  it  upon  the  planet  Mer- 
cury, and  will  then  join  the  ranks  of  the  first-class 
monads  and  share  the  remainder  of  their  evolution 
and  their  varied  opportunities  of  more  rapid  de- 
velopment. Entities  engaged  upon  this  special  line 
of  evolution  form  the  majority  of  the  small  popula- 
tion of  Mercury  and  Mars  at  the  present  time.  In 
the  latter  planet  there  is  also  a  certain  residuum  of 


208  THE  INNER  LIFE 

primitive  mankind  which  was  unprepared  to  pass  on 
when  the  life-wave  left  for  the  Earth — a  race  which 
represents  a  stage  of  humanity  lower  than  any  at 
present  existing  within  our  cognisance.  It  will  prob- 
ably be  extinct  long  before  we  reach  Mars  in  the 
fifth  round,  since  there  appear  to  be  no  other  egos 
needing  manifestation  at  that  level  for  the  moment. 

In  the  same  way  we  find  that  all  the  kingdoms  are 
represented  upon  the  astral  and  mental  globes.  It 
is  not  very  easy  for  us  to  grasp  with  our  physical 
consciousness  what  can  be  the  condition  of  the  life 
of  the  lower  kingdoms  on  these  higher  planes;  the 
idea  of  the  evolution  of  a  mineral  on  the  mental  plane, 
for  example,  suggests  nothing  readily  comprehensi- 
ble to  the  ordinary  mind.  We  may  perhaps  help  our- 
selves towards  the  understanding  of  it  by  remem- 
bering that  every  mineral  must  have  its  astral  and 
mental  counterparts,  and  that  the  special  types  of 
matter  which  form  these  are  also  on  their  respec- 
tive planes  manifestations  of  the  mineral  monad,  and 
we  may  suppose  that  through  such  manifestations 
that  monad  is  evolving  during  its  existence  on  these 
loftier  levels. 

The  group-soul  must  always  contain  within  itself 
latent  possibilities  connected  with  the  higher  planes 
through  which  it  has  descended;  and  it  may  be  that 
in  those  stages  of  evolution  these  potentialities  are 
being  developed  by  some  method  quite  outside  those 
with  which  we  are  familiar.  Without  the  unfolding 
of  psychic  faculties  we  cannot  expect  to  understand 
in  detail  the  hidden  growth  in  these  exalted  spheres 
of  finer  matter;  the  important  point  is  that  we  should 
realise  that  although  the  great  life-wave  resides  only 
upon  one  globe  of  our  group  at  a  given  time,  the  re- 
maining planets  are  by  no  means  dormant,  and  use- 


SUCCESSIVE  LIFE-WAVES  209 

fill  progress  is  continually  being  made  in  every  part 
of  our  chain. 

I  have  tried  to  make  the  above  description  of  the 
successive  life-waves  as  clear  as  possible;  but  lest  it 
should  still  present  some  difficulties  to  the  mind  of  a 
reader  unaccustomed  to  the  study  of  this  system  of 
cosmogony,  I  append  a  little  diagram  which  I  think 
may  be  of  assistance.  The  vertical  columns  indicate 
the  successive  incarnations  of  the  chain;  the  horizon- 
tal divisions  represent  the  various  kingdoms  of 
nature;  the  diagonal  arrows  are  the  successive  waves 
of  evolution  which  have  come  forth  from  the  Logos. 
The  arabic  numbers  attached  to  each  of  these  arrows 
apply  to  those  arrows  only,  and  not  to  the  squares 
in  which  they  happen  to  come.  It  will  be  seen  that 
there  are  thirteen  of  these  arrows.  Their  length  ap- 
pears to  vary,  but  that  is  only  because  we  are  regard- 
ing them  solely  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  own 
scheme  of  evolution. 

Within  the  limits  of  that  scheme  arrow  No.  1  ap- 
pears to  cross  only  one  kingdom — the  human.  That 
does  not  at  all  mean  that  the  wave  represented  by 
that  arrow  has  not  passed  through  the  six  previous 
stages;  it  means  only  that  those  six  previous  stages 
have  been  experienced  in  some  other  scheme.  Just 
the  same  thing  is  true  at  the  opposite  corner  of  the 
diagram.  Arrow  No.  13  crosses  only  one  kingdom — 
the  first  elemental;  it  will  inevitably  in  due  course 
have  to  pass  through  all  the  other  kingdoms,  but  it 
cannot  do  so  in  this  scheme  of  evolution,  because  that 
is  already  at  an  end.  So  far  as  our  diagram  is  con- 
cerned it  appears  in  that  one  kingdom  only. 

If  we  take  the  column  representing  any  one  chain 
— let  us  say  the  fourth,  which  denotes  our  present 
stage  of  evolution — we  shall  find  in  running  the  eye 


210 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


THE  MONADS  FROM  THE  MOON  211 

down  it  that  seven  arrows  pass  through  it,  indicat- 
ing the  seven  kingdoms  now  existing  around  us. 
We  can  follow  any  one  of  those  arrows  either  back- 
wards or  forwards,  and  so  can  trace  any  of  our  king- 
doms either  in  the  past  or  in  the  future.  We  should 
note  that  waves  1  to  6  come  to  us  from  some  other 
scheme  of  evolution,  while  waves  7  to  13  are  fresh 
emanations  from  the  Logos. 


The  Monads  from  the  Moon 

Those  who  have  studied  the  Theosophical  system 
are  aware  that  we  divide  humanity  into  various 
classes  according  to  the  age  of  the  ego,  and  the  degree 
of  his  development.  Transaction  No.  26  of  the  Lon- 
don Lodge  gives  this  arrangement  very  clearly,  and 
it  is  also  to  be  found  in  Chapter  XII  of  The  Ancient 
Wisdom;  but  our  students  will  see  that  the  author 
of  the  last-named  work  has  altered  the  numbering 
of  the  classes  so  as  to  bring  it  more  nearly  into  agree- 
ment with  that  adopted  in  The  Secret  Doctrine. 

Mrs-  Besant  separates  from  the  rest  those  entities 
to  which  the  London  Lodge  Transaction  had  given 
the  titles  of  the  first  and  second  classes,  and  calls 
them  solar  monads,  so  that  she  begins  her  list  of  the 
lunar  monads  with  those  that  the  Transaction  had 
called  the  third  class,  and  to  it  she  gives  the  name  of 
the  first  class;  consequently  in  The  Ancient  Wisdom 
the  fourth  class  of  the  Transaction  is  called  the 
second,  and  the  fifth  becomes  the  third.  Madame 
Blavatsky's  fourth  class  covers  Mr.  Sinnett's  sixth 
and  seventh,  while  the  remainder  of  her  classes  in- 


212 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


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THE  MONADS  FROM  THE  MOON  213 

eludes  entities  which  he  did  not  take  into  account  at 
all.  His  classification  dealt  only  with  members  of  the 
lunar  animal  kingdom,  which  would  become  human 
on  our  earth-chain ;  hers  took  in  everything  which 
passed  over  from  the  lunar  chain  to  this.  Her  fifth 
class  represents  the  vegetable  kingdom  of  the  moon, 
and  her  sixth  class  its  mineral  kingdom,  while  her 
seventh  includes  all  three  of  its  elemental  kingdoms. 

Since  the  writing  of  The  Ancient  Wisdom  and  The 
Pedigree  of  Man,  Mrs.  Besant  has  thought  it  advisa- 
ble to  adopt  clearly  descriptive  English  names  in 
place  of  those  which  have  previously  been  used.  To 
those  who  fully  succeeded  upon  the  moon-chain,  and 
attained  the  arhat  level  prescribed  for  them,  she 
gives  the  title  of  Lords  of  the  Moon.  Those  whom  she 
had  previously  called  solar  monads  (whom  Mr.  Sin- 
nett  had  described  as  first  and  second  class  pitris) 
are  now  to  be  called  moon-men  of  the  first  and  second 
orders  respectively.  The  first  order  of  moon-men 
has  many  sub-divisions,  as  we  shall  see  directly. 
What  she  previously  called  the  first-class  monads 
(Mr.  Sinnett's  third  class)  are  now  described  as 
lunar  animal-men.  Her  second,  third  and  fourth 
classes  (corresponding,  as  above  stated,  to  Mr.  Sin- 
nett's fourth,  fifth,  sixth  and  seventh)  are  now  de- 
scribed as  the  first,  second  and  third  divisions  of  the 
lunar  animals.  This  completes  the  list  of  the  entities 
constituting  our  present  humanity,  as  Madame  Bla- 
vatsky's  lower  classes  (of  which  Mr.  Sinnett  took 
no  account)  will  not  attain  the  human  level  in  the 
present  chain. 

These  classes  are  arranged  in  the  order  of  their 
advancement,  and  they  differ  not  only  in  appearance 
but  also  in  the  methods  by  which  that  advancement 
is    attained.      Among    other    points    there    is    great 


214  THE  INNER  LIFE 

difference  in  the  length  of  the  intervals  between  suc- 
cessive incarnations,  and  in  the  way  in  which  these 
intervals  are  spent;  but  this  part  of  the  subject  will 
be  treated  in  the  section  on  reincarnation. 

To  understand  how  these  classes  are  distinguished 
we  must  remember  that  for  each  chain  of  worlds  a 
definite  level  of  attainment  is  laid  down,  and  to  reach 
that  is  to  gain  full  success.  In  our  pi-esent  chain  of 
worlds  the  level  assigned  is  that  of  the  asekha  adept, 
but  in  the  moon-chain  it  was  the  fourth  step  of  the 
Path,  that  of  the  arhat.  Those  who  fully  attained 
that  on  the  luner  chain  had  achieved  the  purpose  of 
the  Logos,  and  so  were  free  to  take  one  or  other  of 
the  seven  paths  which  always  open  before  the  per* 
fected  humanity  of  each  chain. 

Below  them  were  people  standing  at  many  differ- 
ent stages,  whom  we  must  to  some  extent  attempt 
to  classify.  Broadly  speaking,  the  animal  kingdom 
of  one  chain  makes  the  humanity  of  the  next.  Our 
present  humanity  is  composed  of  the  successful  por- 
tion of  the  animal  kingdom  of  the  moon-chain,  plus 
those  members  of  the  lunar  humanity  who  failed  to 
reach  the  required  level. 

We   have   already   attempted   to    show   into   what 

classes  men  must  inevitably  distribute  themselves  at 

the  end  of  evolution  upon  our  own  earth-chain.     A 

similar  arrangement  existed  at  the  end  of  the  lunar 

chain. 

i 

Those  who  had  attained  the  arhat  level  were  the 
full  successes,  and  they  passed  off  along  one  or  other 
of  their  seven  paths.  We  do  not  certainly  know  that 
these  are  the  same  as  the  seven  which  open  before 
our  own  adepts,  but  at  least  one  of  them  shows  de- 
cided resemblance;  for  just  as  some  of  our  adepts 
will  remain  in  close  touch  with  the  next  chain  and 


THE  MONADS  FROM  THE  MOON  215 

incarnate  on  it  in  order  to  help  its  inhabitants  in 
their  evolution,  so  one  of  the  seven  classes  of  the 
Lords  of  the  Moon  stayed  to  help  us  in  our  chain. 
The  members  of  this  class  are  those  called  in  The 
Secret  Doctrine  the  Barhishads. 

Moon-men  (first  order).  Next  below  this  level 
comes  a  large  and  diversified  group  to  which  we  are 
at  present  giving  the  title  of  moon-men  (first  order), 
though  for  convenience  in  following  out  the  several 
destinies  of  its  subdivisions  it  will  probably  be  found 
necessary  presently  to  assign  separate  names  to  them. 
It  includes  some  who,  though  they  had  not  succeeded 
in  reaching  the  arhat  level,  were  on  some  of  the  lower 
steps  of  the  Path;  others  who  had  not  yet  gained  that 
Path,  though  they  were  approaching  it;  the  failures 
who  had  dropped  out  of  the  lunar  humanity  (cor- 
responding to  the  two-fifths  of  our  humanity  who 
will  drop  out  in  our  fifth  round)  ;  and  the  most  ad- 
vanced representatives  of  the  lunar  animal  kingdom, 
who  had  succeeded  in  fully  developing  the  causal 
body.  We  may  later  give  distinctive  names  to  these 
subdivisions,  but  for  the  present  we  will  merely 
number  them. 

1.  Those  who,  although  they  had  not  attained 
arhatship,  were  already  upon  one  or  other  of  the  vari- 
ous steps  of  the  Path.  These  also,  like  the  Lords  of 
the  Moon,  have  long  ere  this  attained  adeptship  and 
passed  away  altogether  from  the  field  of  our  con- 
sideration. 

2.  Those  of  the  lunar-chain  animal  kingdom  who 
attained  individualisation  in  the  fourth  round  of  the 
moon-chain.  All  these  also  have  by  this  time  attained 
adeptship.  The  Masters  best  known  to  us  in  connec- 
tion with  Theosophical  work  belong  to  this  class,  and 
in  it  we  may  also  include  the  majority  of  those  who 


216  THE  INNER  LIFE 

became  arhats  under  the  influence  of  the  preaching 
of  the  Lord  BUDDHA. 

3.  Those  who  attained  individualisation  in  the  fifth 
round  of  the  moon-chain.  These  are  now  the  dis- 
tinguished people  of  the  world — not  by  any  means 
only  those  whom  the  world  calls  distinguished,  but 
those  who,  along  one  line  or  another,  are  considerably 
in  advance  of  their  fellows.  In  our  Theosophical 
ranks  this  means  those  who  are  either  already  on  the 
Path  or  approaching  it;  in  the  outer  world  it  means 
men  who  are  either  great  saints  or  of  specially  high 
intellectual  or  artistic  development. 

4.  Those  who  attained  individualisation  in  the 
sixth  round  of  the  moon-chain.  We  have  here  a  fairly 
large  class  of  people,  distinctly  gentlemen,  persons  of 
refined  feeling,  with  a  high  sense  of  honour,  and 
rather  above  the  average  in  their  goodness,  intellect, 
or  religious  feelings.  Typical  instances  of  this  class 
are  our  country  gentlemen  and  professional  men,  our 
clergy  or  our  officers  in  the  army  and  navy.  They 
have  strength,  but  they  are  by  no  means  free  from 
the  possibility  of  using  their  power  wrongly.  They 
may  not  do  at  all  what  people  around  them  think 
they  ought  to  do,  and  therefore  they  may  often  not 
be  considered  respectable;  but  at  least  they  will  do 
nothing  low  or  mean. 

5.  Those  who  attained  individualisation  in  the 
seventh  round  of  the  moon-chain.  The  members  of 
this  class  do  not  differ  greatly  from  those  of  the  last, 
except  that  they  are  somewhat  nearer  the  average 
in  goodness  or  intellectual  development  or  religious 
feeling.  They  turn  their  intelligence  to  rather  more 
material  ends,  as  city  merchants  perhaps.  They 
represent  the  great  division  which  we  commonly  call 
the  upper  middle  class — gentlemen  still,  yet  with  a 


THE  MONADS  FROM  THE  MOON  217 

life  slightly  less  elevated  than  that  of  the  professional 
man. 

All  these  classes  which  have  been  mentioned  are 
in  reality  subdivisions  of  one  class — the  first  order  of 
the  moon-men — and  all  the  way  through  they  melt 
into  one  another  by  almost  indistinguishable  grada- 
tions, so  that  the  lowest  ego  of  any  one  of  them 
differs  but  little  from  the  highest  ego  of  the  next 
class  below.  Not  only  are  the  lines  between  them 
thus  not  clearly  marked,  but  there  is  even  a  good 
deal  of  interpenetration.  Egos  belonging  by  right  to 
the  mercantile  class  get  astray  among  the  professions, 
while  those  of  the  higher  type  find  themselves  forced 
into  business.  As  they  say  in  India:  "In  these  days 
castes  are  mixed." 

I  have  divided  them  according  to  the  round  of  the 
lunar  chain  in  which  they  became  human.  When 
that  happens  in  any  of  the  earlier  rounds  it  usually 
means  that  the  newly-formed  ego  proceeded  to  take 
human  incarnations  in  the  next  following  round.  For 
example,  those  who  were  individualised  in  the  fourth 
round  of  the  moon-chain  came  into  human  incarna- 
tion in  the  middle  of  the  fifth,  and  continued  to  in- 
carnate through  the  remainder  of  the  fifth,  the  whole 
of  the  sixth,  and  half  of  the  seventh.  In  the  same 
way  those  individualised  in  the  fifth  round  took  up 
their  series  of  human  incarnations  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixth;  and  those  individualised  in  the  sixth  took 
birth  in  the  seventh.  Those  individualised  in  the 
seventh  round  had  their  first  experience  of  human 
life  on  the  earth-chain,  and  of  course  had  to  be  cor- 
respondingly primitive  on  their  arrival  here. 

Moon-men  (second  order) .  Below  this  huge  class 
comes  the  second  order  of  the  moon-men,  whose 
members,  having  been  individualised  at  a  somewhat 


218  THE  INNER  LIFE 

earlier  stage  in  their  animal  life,  had  not  yet  fully 
developed  a  causal  body,  but  had  already  what  might 
be  described  as  the  skeleton  of  such  a  vehicle — a  num- 
ber of  interlacing  streams  of  force  which  indicated 
the  outline  of  the  ovoid  that  was  yet  to  come.  These 
egos  had  consequently  a  somewhat  curious  appear- 
ance, almost  as  though  they  were  enclosed  in  a  kind 
of  basket-work  of  the  higher  mental  matter. 

At  the  present  day  these  are  represented  by  the 
great  mass  of  the  bourgeoisie;  what  is  usually  called 
the  lower  middle  class,  a  typical  specimen  of  whom 
would  be  the  small  shop-keeper  or  shop-assistant. 
This  class  may  be  described  as  on  the  whole  well- 
intentioned,  but  usually  narrow,  conventional  and 
dull.  They  often  make  a  fetish  of  what  they  call 
respectability.  A  man  who  is  deadly  respectable 
usually  does  nothing  whatever  that  counts,  either  for 
good  or  for  ill.  He  may  go  on  at  a  dead  level  of 
monotony  for  many  lives,  guiding  himself  always  by 
the  canon  of  what  he  supposes  other  people  will  think 
of  him. 

We  may  sometimes  see  a  bourgeois  soul  even  in  the 
higher  classes,  and  when  such  souls  attain  power  in 
any  country,  it  indicates  that  that  country  is  en- 
gaged in  expiating  its  evil  karma.  The  reign  of  such 
a  king  as  George  III.  in  England  was  the  karma  of 
the  murder  of  king  Charles  I.  and  of  the  other 
horrors  of  puritanism;  and  the  result  was  the  division 
between  England  and  America,  which  is  only  now 
being  healed.  Since  people  of  this  level  cannot  learn 
the  lesson  of  any  particular  sub-race  as  rapidly  as 
the  higher  classes,  they  usually  take  many  incarna- 
tions in  each  before  passing  on  to  the  next. 

Lunar  Animal-men.  The  next  group  we  call  the 
lunar  animal-men — those   egos   who   had   individual- 


THE  MONADS  FROM  THE  MOON  219 

ised  from  the  earliest  stage  of  the  animal  kingdom 
at  which  individualisation  was  possible.  They  con- 
sequently commenced  their  human  life  without  any- 
thing which  could  properly  be  called  a  causal  body, 
but  with  the  monad  floating  above  a  personality  to 
which  it  was  linked  only  by  certain  threads  of  nir- 
vanic  matter.  It  was  they  who  in  the  first  round 
filled  the  forms  made  by  the  Lords  of  the  Moon,  and 
thus  did  pioneer  work  for  all  the  kingdoms. 

In  considering  them  we  come  at  last  to  what  are 
called  the  working-classes,  who  make  the  enormous 
majority  of  humanity  in  every  country.  Why  they 
alone  should  receive  the  honourable  title  of  workers 
is  not  clear,  for  they  would  assuredly  rebel  with 
promptitude  and  vigour  if  they  were  called  upon  to 
work  as  many  hours  a  day  as  does  any  successful 
man  of  the  higher  classes;  but  it  is  usually  taken  to 
signify  those  who  work  with  their  hands  rather 
than  with  their  heads.  The  particular  type  with 
which  we  are  dealing  at  the  moment — those  who  were 
animal-men  on  the  moon — may  be  said  to  work  with 
both,  for  they  are  the  skilled  workmen  of  the  world 
— belonging  to  the  proletariat,  but  representing  the 
best  class  of  it;  men  of  determination  and  good 
character,  self-respecting  and  reliable. 

Below  that  again  we  have  three  classes,  whose 
members  had  not  yet  succeeded  in  breaking  away 
from  their  group-souls,  and  were  consequently  not 
then  individualities,  though  they  had  every  prospect 
of  becoming  so  during  our  present  earth-chain. 
These  are  still  labelled  as  animals. 

First-class  Moon-animals.  These  attained  human- 
ity during  the  second  round  of  the  earth-chain,  and 
are  at  the  present  day  represented  by  the  vast  mass 
of  unskilled  labour,  on  the  whole  well-meaning  but 


220  THE  INNER  LIFE 

usually  careless  and  improvident.  Along  with  them 
we  must  group  the  higher  types  of  savages — men  like 
the  Zulus  and  some  of  the  better  kinds  of  American 
Indians  and  negroes. 

Second-class  Moon-animals.  This  is  a  lower  type 
which  gained  individuality  only  in  the  third  round  of 
the  earth-chain.  We  see  it  exemplified  now  in  sav- 
ages of  comparatively  mild  type,  in  some  of  the  hill- 
tribes  of  India,  and  among  ourselves  in  the  wastrels, 
the  unemployable,  the  drunkards,  and  many  of  the 
slum-dwellers  of  our  great  towns. 

Third-class  Moon-animals.  These  are  the  lowest 
specimens  of  humanity,  but  little  removed  even  now 
from  the  animal  kingdom,  which  they  left  only  during 
the  earlier  world-periods  of  this  present  round,  or 
even  in  the  earlier  races  on  this  earth.  It  is  repre- 
sented now  by  the  lowest  and  most  brutal  of  savages, 
and  among  ourselves  by  habitual  criminals,  by  bomb- 
throwers  and  wife-  and  child-beaters.  To  this  group 
also  may  be  added  a  few  of  those  who  at  various 
stages  were  individualised  through  hatred  or  fear. 

Below  all  these  come  the  three  classes  which  fur- 
nish our  present  lower  kingdoms;  the  lunar  vegeta- 
ble kingdom,  which  is  now  our  animal;  the  lunar 
mineral,  which  is  now  our  vegetable;  and  the  lunar 
elemental  kingdoms,  the  most  advanced  of  which  has 
become  our  mineral  kingdom. 

It  is  to  those  whom  we  have  called  the  animal-men 
that  the  pioneer  work  on  the  earth-chain  was  as- 
signed. Although  on  the  moon  they  broke  away 
from  the  animal  kingdom,  and  must  therefore  be 
considered  as  potentially  human,  on  the  first  globe  of 
the  first  round  of  our  earth-chain  they  entered  into 
evolution  not  at  the  human  level  but  at  that  of  the 
first  elemental  kingdom.     They  passed  rapidly  from 


THE  MONADS  FROM  THE  MOON  221 

that  into  the  second  and  third,  and  then  successively 
through  the  mineral,  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms 
until  they  reached  the  human. 

In  each  of  these  kingdoms  they  established  the 
forms,  taking  the  idea  of  them  from  the  minds  of 
the  Lords  of  the  Moon,  who,  on  behalf  of  the  Logos, 
were  directing  the  evolution  of  that  globe.  We 
might  rather  say,  perhaps,  that  these  primitive  enti- 
ties flowed  into  the  moulds  made  by  the  instructors, 
and  materialised  these  moulds  for  the  use  of  those 
who  followed  them;  for  close  behind  them  all  the 
time  was  pressing  the  next  class  of  monads — the 
highest  of  those  who  had  not  yet  in  the  lunar  chain 
broken  away  from  the  group-souls.  And  behind 
them  in  turn  came  all  the  rest. 

When  our  animal-men  had  completed  this  work  on 
the  first  globe  in  that  first  round,  they  moved  on  to 
the  second  globe  and  repeated  exactly  the  same 
process  there  in  denser  matter;  when  that  was 
finished  they  passed  to  the  third,  and  then  to  the 
fourth,  and  so  on,  running  again  through  the  tedious 
evolution  from  the  first  elemental  kingdom  up  to  the 
human  in  each  of  the  globes,  in  order  that  the  forms 
might  be  duly  prepared  for  those  that  followed.  At 
the  end  of  the  first  round  their  task  was  over,  and 
they  entered  the  first  globe  of  the  second  round  at 
the  level  of  primitive  humanity,  though  it  was  so 
primitive  that  the  advantage  is  scarcely  a  percepti- 
ble one. 

In  the  course  of  that  second  round  the  first  class 
of  the  lunar  animals  had  reached  the  human  level, 
and  the  same  thing  happened  in  the  third  round  to 
the  second  class  of  lunar  animals;  but  here  a  fresh 
complication  is  introduced  by  the  entry  in  the  middle 
of  the  third  round  of  the  second  order  of  moon-men, 


222  THE  INNER  LIFE 

who  had  succeeded  on  the  moon-chain  in  setting  up 
a  kind  of  framework  for  the  causal  body.  Coming 
in  at  this  stage,  they  soon  pushed  themselves  to  the 
front  and  took  the  lead. 

Students  will  remember  that  the  fourth  world- 
period  of  the  fourth  round  differs  from  all  the  rest 
in  that  it  is  to  some  extent  a  recapitulation  of  all 
the  earlier  stages.  A  large  number  of  entities  ap- 
pear to  have  been  on  the  brink  of  individualisation, 
but  could  not  quite  attain  it  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  evolution  before  that  middle  point  of  the  fourth 
round  when  the  door  was  to  be  shut.  A  special  op- 
portunity was  therefore  given  to  them,  and  the  con7 
ditions  of  the  first,  second  and  third  rounds  were 
reproduced  in  miniature  in  the  first,  second  and 
third  root-races  of  this  present  world-period. 

If  we  examine  humanity  as  it  appeared  on  Mars 
in  this  fourth  round,  we  find  that  it  did  not  differ 
radically  in  appearance  from  that  of  the  present  day; 
and  this  is  true  of  all  its  root-races  from  the  first  to 
the  seventh.  But  if  we  look  at  the  humanity  of  the 
first  root-race  on  our  own  globe  in  this  present 
round,  we  shall  see  that  its  members  are  utterly  un- 
like any  kind  of  men  that  we  know.  They  are  mere 
drifting  masses  of  cloud — just  the  men  of  the  first 
round  over  again.  In  the  same  way  men  of  our 
second  root-race  have  the  curious  formless  pudding- 
bag  appearance  which  had  not  until  then  been  seen 
on  any  world  of  our  chain  since  the  second  round. 
In  the  third  root-race  came  over  again  all  the  busi- 
ness of  the  descent  into  denser  matter  and  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  sexes  which  had  distinguished  the 
middle  of  the  third  round. 

All  this  was  done  only  for  the  sake  of  backward 
entities,  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  only  they 


THE  MONADS  FROM  THE  MOON  223 

took  part  in  it — which  accounts  for  the  sin  of  the 
mindless,  the  extreme  degradation  of  the  forms, 
and  other  things.  None  of  the  humanity  of  previous 
rounds  (and  previous  parts  of  this  round)  appeared 
during  that  period  at  all;  all  its  members  came  in 
only  when  the  changes  in  the  middle  of  the  third 
root-race  had  brought  matters  back  to  something  re- 
sembling the  conditions  to  which  they  were  accus- 
tomed— though  even  then  the  physical  vehicles  were 
of  so  low  a  type  that  some  of  the  arrivals  declined  to 
occupy  them.  The  whole  of  the  plan  of  the  earlier 
races  of  this  globe  was  in  fact  the  offering  of  a  final 
opportunity  to  the  laggards,  and  it  was  to  a  large 
extent  successful.  Many  entities  who  had  not  been 
fully  able  to  take  advantage  of  these  conditions  in 
those  earlier  rounds  were  able  to  do  something  with 
them  now,  especially  with  the  aid  of  the  tremendous 
impetus  given  to  evolution  by  the  descent  of  the 
Lords  of  the  Flame  from  Venus. 

In  this  fourth  round  the  third  class  of  lunar  ani- 
mals attained  their  individuality,  and  in  the  middle 
of  the  third  root-race  on  this  globe  the  less  developed 
of  the  first  order  of  moon-men  began  to  return  to 
incarnation  also.  From  that  time  until  the  middle 
of  the  Atlantean  period,  and  perhaps  even  somewhat 
beyond  it,  the  monads  of  that  first  order  came 
rapidly  into  incarnation,  and  of  course  at  once  took 
up  a  position  in  the  forefront  of  evolving  humanity. 

It  is  hoped  that  this  attempt  at  explanation  will 
facilitate  the  work  of  those  who  are  studying  this 
most  interesting  subject.  There  is,  it  is  true,  much 
complication  in  detail,  but  the  broad  principles  are 
clear,  and  a  student  who  keeps  those  in  mind  will 
soon  grasp  the  scheme  as  a  whole. 


224  THE  IXNER  LIFE 


The  Earth-Chain 

We  have  just  passed  the  middle  point  of  the  evo* 
lution  of  our  chain  of  worlds.  There  are  to  be  seven 
rounds — seven  journeys  round  the  seven  globes. 
Three  of  those  journeys  have  been  completed,  and  we 
are  now  on  the  fourth  (the  middle)  globe  of  the 
fourth  round.  The  middle  point  of  our  world-period 
ought  to  be  the  culmination  of  the  fourth  or  Atlantean 
root-race,  and  as  we  are  now  at  a  comparatively  early 
period  in  the  history  of  the  fifth  root-race  it  is  evi- 
dent that  we  have  only  just  passed  that  middle  period. 
We  do  not  know,  however,  whether  the  middle  point 
in  evolution  corresponds  to  the  middle  point  in  time, 
for  we  do  not  know  whether  all  the  rounds  or  all 
the  race-periods  are  of  the  same  length.  As  I  have 
mentioned  before,  the  probabilities  seem  to  be  that 
they  differ,  perhaps  even  differ  considerably;  and 
there  is  reason  to  hope  those  lying  in  front  of  us 
may  be  somewhat  shorter  than  those  which  are  be- 
hind us. 

As  I  have  already  said,  it  is  useless  even  to  specu- 
late on  the  actual  length  in  years  of  these  enormous 
periods.  Some  years  ago  we  took  considerable  pains 
to  verify  one  of  the  remote  dates  given  in  The  Secret 
Doctrine,  that  of  sixteen  and  a  half  million  years 
since  the  separation  of  the  sexes  in  the  middle  of  the 
third  root-race.  We  found  that  separation  to  be  a 
long  process  which  extended  over  more  than  a  mil- 
lion years  and  was  taking  place  at  different  times  in 
different  parts  of  the  world.  Selecting  a  time  when 
it  seemed  to  have  been  fairly  achieved,  we  calculated 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  225 

from  that  time  to  the  present  by  observing  certain 
astronomical  changes,  and  our  result  was  within  a 
hundred  thousand  years  of  Madame  Blavatsky's.  As 
this  was  an  observation  made  years  after  her  death, 
and  by  methods  absolutely  different  from  any  that 
I  have  known  her  to  use,  I  think  we  may  accept  it 
as  a  very  good  corroboration. 

From  what  we  saw  in  the  course  of  that  enquiry 
we  came  to  the  conclusion  that  all  those  earlier  radi- 
cal changes  in  the  constitution  of  man  extended  over 
really  enormous  periods  of  time,  but  that  the  later 
changes  connected  with  the  development  of  civilisa- 
tions passed  much  more  rapidly,  so  that  these  latter 
could  be  counted  by  thousands  of  years,  while  the 
former  required  actually  millions.  Without  then 
pledging  ourselves  to  anything  in  the  way  of  dates 
as  regards  the  earlier  part  of  this  stupendous  evolu- 
tion, let  us  glance  rapidly  over  the  work  done  so  far 
in  this  earth-chain. 

Before  the  solar  system  was  brought  into  mani- 
festation, the  Logos  formed  the  entire  scheme  of  it 
in  His  mind,  and  by  doing  so  brought  it  all  simul- 
taneously into  existence  upon  His  mental  plane.  At 
what  level  that  mental  plane  may  be  we  cannot  tell; 
it  may  be  what  we  call  the  mental  cosmic  plane,  or 
it  may  be  higher  still.  To  it  Madame  Blavatsky,  so 
far  as  it  concerns  our  solar  system,  has  given  the 
name  of  "the  archetypal  world,"  and  the  Greeks 
seem  to  have  called  it  "the  intelligible  world."  All 
that  we  hear  or  read  as  to  an  instantaneous  creation 
of  the  whole  system  out  of  nothing  refers  to  this 
formation  of  cosmic  thought-forms. 

Indeed,  from  one  point  of  view  it  seems  as  though 
we  were  in  truth  an  expression  of  the  Planetary 
Logos  Himself,  and  as  though  the  evolution  were  tak- 


226  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ing  place  within  His  body,  as  though  the  globes  were 
centres  in  that  body,  or  rather,  not  the  globes  that 
we  see,  but  the  spirit  of  them — their  higher  prin- 
ciples. From  this  point  of  view  globe  A  would  be 
the  expression  of  His  brain  or  mental  body,  and  all 
these  forms  would  exist  in  His  mind.  For  our  men- 
tal plane  is  not  only  the  third  subdivision  of  the  low- 
est cosmic  plane;  it  is  also  at  the  same  time  the  low- 
est subdivision  of  an  aspect  or  manifestation  of  the 
Logos.  We  may  take  it  that  He  manifests  Himself 
along  seven  lines  or  through  seven  aspects,  and  that 
each  of  these  that  we  call  planes  is  the  lowest  form 
of  one  of  these  aspects,  so  that  the  atomic  part  of 
our  mental  plane  is  really  the  lowest  subplane  of  the 
mental  body  of  the  Planetary  Logos. 

Before  the  Manu  of  a  chain  or  of  a  round  com- 
mences the  task  appointed  for  Him,  He  examines  the 
part  of  that  mighty  thought-form  which  refers  to 
His  work,  and  brings  it  down  to  some  level  within 
easy  reach  for  constant  reference.  The  same  thing 
is  done  at  a  somewhat  lower  level  by  the  Manu  of 
each  world  and  of  each  root-race.  Each  Manu  at 
His  own  level  has  before  Him  the  model  towards 
which  He  has  to  build,  and  He  endeavours  to  make 
His  race  or  His  world,  as  the  case  may  be,  as  nearly 
as  possible  an  exact  copy  of  what  the  Logos  intended 
it  to  be.  As  He  has  to  build  with  existing  materials 
He  can  usually  approach  the  required  perfection 
only  by  degrees;  and  so  the  earlier  efforts  at  the 
formation  of  a  race,  for  example,  are  often  only  par- 
tially successful. 

In  the  first  round  of  the  earth-chain  the  Manu  in 
charge  brought  down  all  the  archetypes  for  the 
whole  of  the  chain.  Although  many  of  these  will  not 
be  fully  perfected  down  here  until  the  seventh  round, 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  227 

the  germs  of  all  of  them  were  already  there  even  in 
the  first  round.  For  every  kingdom  in  nature  He 
selected  a  certain  set  of  forms,  which  He  wished  to 
have  vivified  during  the  first  round,  with  the  view  of 
developing  from  them  at  later  stages  everything 
which  the  Logos  wished  the  earth-chain  to  produce. 
The  scheme  of  these  forms,  materialised  down  to  a 
level  where  they  could  use  them,  was  handed  over 
to  certain  of  the  Lords  of  the  Moon,  who  were  en- 
trusted with  the  work  of  setting  the  activities  of 
the  first  chain  in  motion.  They  made  these  forms  in 
each  of  the  seven  worlds  of  that  first  round,  and  as 
they  made  them  the  animal-men  from  the  moon  en- 
tered them,  solidified  and  used  them,  and  from  them 
generated  others  which  could  be  inhabited  by  the 
moon-animals  which  occupied  the  stages  below  them. 

On  each  of  the  planets  these  lunar  animal-men  be- 
gan at  the  lowest  level,  with  the  forms  necessary  for 
the  first  elemental  kingdoms.  Then  they  passed 
through  in  rapid  succession  the  second  and  third  ele- 
mental kingdoms,  and  then  the  mineral,  vegetable 
and  animal  until  they  reached  the  human.  Having 
done  this  on  each  planet  they  attained  humanity  for 
the  last  time  on  the  seventh  planet  of  the  lunar  chain. 
Since  then  they  have  rested  from  that  particular 
kind  of  labour,  for  on  the  second  round  and  after- 
wards they  were  human  from  the  beginning. 

The  conditions  during  that  first  round  were  differ- 
ent from  any  that  have  prevailed  since.  First,  the 
life  was  in  all  cases  a  stage  higher,  for  when  the 
planets  were  first  brought  into  existence  they  were 
at  the  same  level  as  those  of  the  moon-chain.  Globes 
A  and  G,  for  example,  which  are  now  on  the  lower 
levels  of  the  mental  plane,  were  then  the  theatre  for 
life  belonging  to  the  higher  levels.    The  globes  them- 


228  THE  INNER  LIFE 

selves  were  built  even  then  of  the  lower  mental  mat- 
ter, but  it  was  not  in  a  condition  to  be  inhabited  by 
beings  at  its  own  level — not  sufficiently  condensed 
nor  sufficiently  at  rest.  Globes  B  and  F,  though  com- 
posed of  astral  matter,  were  then  utilised  only  for 
forms  of  lower  mental  matter. 

Mars  and  Mercury  were  still  in  a  condition  largely 
gaseous  and  etheric,  and  only  astral  bodies  were  em- 
ployed by  the  entities  who  lived  their  lives  upon  these 
two  planets.  Our  own  planet  D  already  contained  a 
good  deal  of  solid  physical  matter,  but  in  a  condition 
of  heat  so  intense  that  there  were  still  lakes  and 
seas  and  even  showers  of  molten  metal,  so  that  it 
would  have  been  quite  impossible  for  people  with 
bodies  in  the  slightest  degree  like  ours  to  live  there 
at  all.  The  inhabitants,  however,  used  only  vehicles 
of  etheric  matter,  and  therefore  were  not  at  all  in- 
commoded by  these  conditions.  In  the  interval  be- 
tween the  first  and  the  second  round  the  matter  of 
the  various  globes  had  time  to  settle  down  into  a 
more  orderly  condition,  so  that  each  of  them  could 
be  inhabited  by  entities  using  vehicles  at  the  level  of 
its  own  matter. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  imagine  what  the  evolution 
of  that  first  chain  can  have  been;  it  is  even  difficult 
for  those  of  us  who  have  repeatedly  watched  it  to 
give  any  account  of  it  in  words  upon  the  physical 
plane.  It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  realise  even  the 
present  condition  of  globe  A.  We  can  understand 
that  the  men  of  that  globe  are  living  in  their  mental 
bodies,  and  we  can  imagine  to  some  extent  that  the 
group-souls  of  animals  and  vegetables  may  somehow 
or  other  exist  at  such  a  level;  but  what  can  a  min- 
eral be  upon  the  mental  plane?  It  would  correspond 
to  our  thought  of  a  mineral.    Yet  perhaps  we  should 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  229 

be  wrong  to  assume  that  such  a  thought-form  as  we 
could  make  of  gold  would  be  the  only  representative 
of  gold  on  that  level;  the  thought-form  which  exists 
there  is  that  of  the  Manu,  and  is  moulded  by  a  power 
altogether  beyond  comparison  with  that  of  our  men- 
tality. 

Every  article  which  exists  on  the  physical  plane 
must  also  exist  in  a  certain  sense  upon  all  the  planes 
above  it,  since  it  is  a  manifestation  of  the  divine  life, 
and  must  therefore  have  its  connecting  link  through 
all  the  planes.  It  must  be  on  these  higher  corre- 
spondences of  the  minerals  that  certain  effects  are 
produced  which  constitute  for  them  the  evolution  of 
those  less  material  globes;  but  the  idea  is  not  one 
which  can  readily  be  explained  or  made  to  gear  in 
with  the  conceptions  of  the  physical  brain.  It  is  the 
bringing  down  of  the  mind-energies  flowing  from 
the  Logos — from  His  cosmic  mental  plane  to  that 
prakritic  mental  which  is  our  mental  plane.  It  is 
His  idea  of  a  mineral,  materialised  as  low  down  as 
our  thought  of  the  etheric  body  of  a  mineral. 

When  the  whole  thing  was  brought  down  upon  globe 
D  in  the  first  round  the  etheric  body  of  a  mineral  was 
formed,  but  even  then  it  was  not  a  whole  etheric 
body,  because  at  this  early  stage  only  some  of  the  sub- 
planes  were  fully  vivified.  The  very  atoms  also  were 
more  sluggish,  since  only  one  set  of  spirilla?  was  in 
activity.  In  each  round  an  additional  force  was 
poured  into  the  atoms,  and  that  brought  an  addi- 
tional set  of  spirillae  into  play,  so  that  now  as  we  are 
in  the  fourth  round  we  have  four  sets  of  spirillae  in 
activity;  but  even  now  our  atom  is  as  nothing  in  com- 
parison with  that  which  will  exist  in  the  seventh 
round,  when  all  the  sets  of  spirillae  will  be  fully  work- 
ing, and  the  entire  atom  will  be  what  the  Logos  in- 
tends it  to  be. 


230  THE  INNER  LIFE 

The  man  of  globe  A  in  the  first  round  can  hardly 
be  called  a  man  at  all;  he  is  a  thought.  He  is  what 
will  some  day  be  a  mind-body — the  germ  of  a  mind- 
body,  bearing  perhaps  the  same  relation  to  its  later 
possibilities  as  the  embryonic  form  of  an  infant  after 
the  first  month  bears  to  the  fully  developed  human 
body.  He  has  marvellously  little  consciousness  at  this 
early  stage. 

As  we  have  said,  on  the  astral  globe  B  in  the  first 
round  everything  was  brought  down  to  the  lower 
mental  level  and  fixed  definitely  there,  with  a  little 
commencement  of  astralisation.  On  Mars  men  had 
definite  astral  bodies,  but  they  were  as  yet  imper- 
fect, for  only  matter  of  certain  subplanes  was  then 
to  be  had.  A  little  touch  of  etheric  matter  was  also 
introduced,  though  only  certain  kinds  of  ether  were 
available.  On  the  Earth  in  this  round  men  had 
etheric  bodies,  but  they  were  mere  drifting  shapeless 
clouds,  though  towards  the  end  of  the  world-period 
they  began  to  aggregate  around  themselves  gaseous 
matter  as  well  as  etheric.  They  appear  to  have  ab- 
sorbed from  the  intensely  heated  surrounding  atmos- 
phere whatever  they  required  in  the  way  of  nutriment. 

They  seem  to  have  had  a  succession  of  manifesta- 
tions which  I  suppose  we  must  take  as  corresponding 
to  races — apparently,  however,  only  root-races,  for 
there  were  but  seven;  and  one  incarnation  (if  we  can 
call  it  an  incarnation)  for  each  individual  lasted 
through  the  whole  race.  It  appears,  however,  that 
the  world-periods  were  enormously  longer  then  even 
than  they  are  now,  but  it  is  not  easy  for  us,  with 
our  ideas  of  what  life  means,  to  understand  how 
these  most  primitive  of  men  could  contrive  to  evolve 
at  all.  The  condition  of  the  world  has  already  been 
described,  but  we  may  note  that  some  of  the  chemi- 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  231 

cal  elements  were  already  beginning  to  combine.  By 
the  end  of  the  world-period  the  temperature  was  con- 
siderably reduced,  perhaps  to  about  a  thousand  de- 
grees Fahrenheit  on  the  average,  though  it  remained 
much  hotter  than  that  in  certain  districts,  and  in 
others  it  had  even  got  down  to  the  level  of  boiling 
water. 

On  globe  E  (Mercury)  they  had  apparently  only 
the  three  higher  ethers — not  four  as  they  had  had 
upon  the  earth.  But  they  had  obviously  progressed, 
and  were  much  more  alive  than  they  had  been, 
though  even  now  their  consciousness  seemed  amceba- 
like.  Nevertheless,  it  is  clear  that  man  was  already 
beginning  in  a  blind  way  to  work  both  upwards  and 
downwards — downwards  to  densify  his  lower  vehicles 
and  upwards  to  make  them  more  conscious.  Primi- 
tive though  everything  was,  it  is  clear  that  each  globe 
was  an  advance  on  that  which  had  preceded  it.  But 
in  all  cases  it  appears  that  he  had  not  yet  the  full 
consciousness  even  of  any  subdivision  of  matter  in 
which  he  happened  to  be  working.  The  impression 
given  rather  is  that  each  subdivision  was  again  sub- 
divided, and  that  he  was  able  to  use  only  this  frac- 
tion of  a  part. 

There  seems  little  to  be  said  with  regard  to  evolu- 
tion on  globes  F  and  G,  except  that  there  for  the 
first  time  we  begin  to  notice  the  curious  phenomenon 
of  failures.  On  every  globe  from  the  first  a  certain 
small  portion  of  each  kingdom  had  been  intentionally 
left  behind,  in  order  to  act  as  seed  for  the  next  occu- 
pation of  the  planet  in  the  following  round.  If  this 
were  not  done  all  the  trouble  of  making  the  forms 
afresh  would  have  to  be  undertaken  on  each  globe  in 
each  round ;  whereas  by  the  present  scheme  a  cer- 
tain population  is  always  left  on  each  planet,  from 


232  THE  INNER  LIFE 

which  the  race  can  be  reproduced  in  the  next  round 
when  necessary.  The  great  wave  of  life  move^  from 
planet  to  planet,  as  the  Logos  wills  it.  When  He 
fixes  His  attention  upon  one  globe,  the  life  flames 
out  there  and  evolution  pushes  rapidly  forward. 
When  He  withdraws  His  eyes  from  it  the  life  fades 
away,  the  wheels  of  progress  slacken  and  the  wave 
passes  on  to  the  globe  to  which  His  attention  has 
been  turned.    But  the  life  does  not  die  out  altogether. 

A  small  population,  human,  animal,  vegetable,  still 
remains,  but  does  not  increase.  It  usually  maintains 
its  numbers  at  about  the  same  level  through  the  un- 
told millions  of  years  until  that  planet  is  entered 
again.  When  the  life-wave  reaches  it  once  more, 
when  a  vast  number  of  egos  are  ready  to  incarnate 
in  it,  the  stagnant  race  suddenly  becomes  wondrously 
prolific,  and  great  changes  and  vast  improvements 
of  all  kinds  are  quickly  introduced,  and  vehicles  are 
soon  evolved  fit  to  receive  the  coming  inrush  of  a 
far  more  highly  evolved  humanity.  Meantime  the 
small  and  comparatively  torpid  race  has  been  pro- 
viding for  those  who  are  engaged  in  the  inner  round 
to  which  I  have  already  referred.  As  I  have  said,  in 
the  earlier  globes  of  the  first  round  this  seed  was 
purposely  left  behind;  but  towards  the  end  of  that 
round  there  were  egos  who  did  not  achieve  quite 
what  was  expected  of  them — who  were  not  fit  to  go 
on  to  globe  G  at  the  time  when  the  normal  evolution 
of  globe  F  was  over. 

Such  entities  were  left  behind,  and  worked  on 
steadily  among  the  remnant,  passing  perhaps,  in 
process  of  time,  to  join  the  remnant  of  globe  G; 
possibly  also,  by  means  of  some  extraordinary  im- 
pulse, occasionally  being  able  to  hurry  on  to  try  to 
overtake  the  life-wave,  but  more  often  continuing  to 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  233 

lag  behind,  until  they  are  overtaken  by  the  life-wave 
on  its  next  journey  round  the  globes.  In  this  latter 
case  they  usually  find  themselves  in  a  class  of  monads 
lower  than  that  to  which  they  had  previously  be- 
longed. This  process  is  a  kind  of  reversal  of  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  inner  round.  In  the  inner  round  the 
ego  runs  on  ahead  of  the  life-wave,  and  by  making 
an  extra  journey  round  the  globes  raises  himself  one 
class  higher.  These  laggards  fall  behind  the  life-wave 
and,  by  losing  one  round,  drop  into  an  inferior  class. 
A  certain  proportion  of  these  failures  appear  on 
every  planet  and  in  all  the  various  kingdoms — 
mineral  essence  that  ought  to  have  reached  the  vege- 
table level,  vegetable  life  that  should  have  touched 
the  animal,  animal  life  that  should  have  become  in- 
dividualised. 

No  matter  of  the  lower  planes  is  ever  carried  over 
from  planet  to  planet.  When,  for  example,  we  leave 
this  planet  in  order  to  incarnate  upon  Mercury,  only 
the  egos  will  be  carried  over.  Those  egos  will  draw 
round  themselves  mental  and  astral  matter  belonging 
to  their  new  planet,  and  they  will  obtain  physical 
bodies  by  entering  the  baby  vehicles  provided  by 
some  of  those  who  are  already  inhabiting  Mercury. 

Just  at  first  those  vehicles  will  be  of  but  poor 
quality,  no  doubt;  but  it  will  not  be  the  first-class 
monads  who  require  them,  for  it  is  a  law  of  this  sys- 
tem of  evolution  that  those  who  reach  the  highest 
level  on  one  planet  are  never  born  in  the  early  races 
of  the  next  planet.  They  do  not  need  such  primitive 
evolution  as  those  early  races  would  give,  and  so  they 
join  the  evolution  of  the  planet  when  a  certain  pro- 
portion of  its  people  have  evolved  to  somewhere  near 
their  level,  and  can  provide  them  with  fitting  vehicles. 

Exactly  the  same  thing  happens  as  egos  pass  from 


234  THE  INNER  LIFE 

chain  to  chain.  The  most  developed  of  the  lunar  in- 
habitants are  not  found  in  the  first  round  of  the  earth- 
chain,  but  come  in  only  in  the  middle  of  the  fourth. 
The  egos  who  incarnate  in  the  first  root-race  on  any 
planet  are  those  who  have  not  progressed  beyond  the 
middle  of  the  evolution  on  the  previous  planet,  just 
as  it  was  the  animal-men  from  the  moon  who  did  all 
the  work  in  this  first  round  of  the  earth-chain  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking. 

In  connection  with  this  first  round  it  may  be  well 
to  explain  the  apparent  difference  which  exists  be- 
tween the  Theosophical  teaching  and  the  theories  of 
Darwin.  In  this  first  round,  when  form  appeared  for 
the  first  time  so  far  as  our  planetary  chain  is  con- 
cerned, the  human  shape  was  evolved  from  the  ani- 
mal, just  as  the  Darwinian  theory  suggests,  though 
it  is  also  true  that  in  our  present  fourth  round  the 
process  was  reversed,  and  the  human  form  existed 
on  this  globe  before  those  of  any  of  the  mammals 
which  we  now  know. 

For  the  inconceivably  slow  process  of  natural  selec- 
tion from  accidental  variation  we  substitute  an  in- 
telligent direction  both  of  the  selection  and  of  the 
variations;  for  we  hold  that  the  forms  evolve  only 
in  order  that  they  may  be  a  fitter  expression  for  the 
evolving  life  within.  Our  attitude  towards  Darwin- 
ism is  that  we  agree  in  broad  outline  with  its  dis- 
coveries, but  carry  them  much  further,  since  we  pro- 
pound a  spiritual  as  well  as  a  material  evolution. 

In  the  second  round  the  forms  made  in  the  first 
round  were  already  there,  so  that  it  was  not  neces- 
sary to  repeat  the  building  process.  Each  subplane 
of  each  plane  is  divided  into  seven,  so  that  in  each 
plane  there  are  forty-nine  subdivisions.  In  this 
second  round  man  was  working  at  and  through  the 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  235 

first  and  second  subdivisions  of  each  of  the  subplanes, 
so  that  while  he  had  matter  of  all  the  planes  in  him 
it  was  only  the  two  lower  subdivisions  of  the  two 
lower  sub-planes  that  were  active.  Man  may  be  said 
to  be  building  his  lower  quaternary  gradually  through 
the  earlier  half  of  his  evolution. 

In  this  second  round  the  races  were  much  more 
definite,  and  were  clearly  distinguishable  one  from 
another.  Men  were  no  longer  mere  drifting  clouds  of 
etheric  or  gaseous  matter,  but  had  succeeded  in  de- 
veloping a  certain  amount  of  solidity,  though  they 
were  still  unpleasantly  jelly-like  in  consistency  and 
indeterminate  in  shape.  Madame  Blavatsky  com- 
pares them  to  puclding-bags,  because  of  the  curious 
shapeless  projections  which  they  had  instead  of  arms 
and  legs.  At  the  beginning  of  the  round  they  put 
out  these  projections  temporarily,  just  as  an  amoeba 
does;  but  constant  repetition  of  the  process  at  last 
made  the  projections  permanent,  and  moulded  them 
into  some  approximation  to  the  form  into  which  they 
were  destined  finally  to  settle.  Many  of  these  people 
were  so  light  and  tenuous  that  they  were  able  to  drift 
about  in  the  heavy  atmosphere  of  the  time.  Others 
rolled  along  rather  than  crept,  but  none  of  them  were 
able  to  maintain  themselves  in  an  upright  position 
without  assistance. 

Man  was  still  lamentably  incomplete  as  regards 
his  higher  vehicles.  He  had  what  he  considered  a 
mind,  and  something  else  that  might  stand  for  a 
feeble  astral  body,  but  his  consciousness  was  still  dim 
and  vague  and  he  had  little  thinking  power;  he  was 
all  instincts  and  almost  no  reason. 

In  this  round  the  animal-men  maintained  and  im- 
proved their  human  position,  and  by  the  end  of  it  the 
first  class  of  the  animals  had  definitely  attained  hu- 


236  THE  INNER  LIFE 

manity.  Just  as  all  the  archetypes  of  the  mineral 
kingdom  had  been  fully  brought  down  in  the  first 
round,  though  not  yet  fully  worked  out,  so  were  all 
the  vegetable  archetypes  brought  down  in  this  second 
round,  though  it  was  long  after  that  before  they  were 
all  realised.  It  is  probably  chiefly  to  the  vegetation 
of  this  period  that  we  owe  our  coal  deposits. 

In  the  course  of  the  third  round  we  come  to  more 
comprehensible  conditions.  Even  in  the  earlier  globes 
man  became  more  human  in  shape  than  he  had  been 
before,  though  even  then  he  was  still  cloudy,  gigan- 
tic and  far  from  beautiful.  On  Mars  in  this  third 
round  man  had  for  the  first  time  what  may  be  called 
a  recognisably  human  body,  though  at  first  it  was  still 
etheric,  and  more  like  some  kind  of  reptilian  monkey 
than  like  man  as  we  know  him  now.  He  was  still 
somewhat  jelly-like,  and  if  one  pressed  in  his  skin 
by  a  poke  of  the  finger  the  hole  remained  for  a  long 
time  before  it  filled  out  again.  He  had  rudimentary 
bones — more  gristle  perhaps  than  bone,  but  he  was 
not  stiff  enough  to  stand,  and  so  he  lay  about  grovel- 
ling and  wallowing  in  the  soft  warm  mud  at  the 
sides  of  the  rivers. 

Mars  had  much  more  water  then  than  it  has  now, 
and  much  of  the  country  was  pretty,  though  the  vege- 
tation was  peculiar.  The  atmosphere  was  what  we 
should  now  consider  unbreathable — full  of  chlorine 
and  quite  suffocating.  All  the  animal  archetypes 
were  brought  down  in  this  round,  though  many  of 
them  were  not  worked  out  until  the  middle  of  our 
present  round. 

On  the  earth  in  the  third  round  great  changes  took 
place.  Even  from  the  beginning  men  were  more  com- 
pact and  began  to  try  to  stand  upright,  though  they 
were  still  shaky  and  uncertain,  and  always  fell  back 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  237 

to  all-fours  when  pursued  or  frightened.  They  began 
to  have  hair  and  bristles  upon  the  body,  but  they 
were  still  loose  and  flabby.  Their  skins  were  dark 
and  their  faces  scarcely  human;  strangely  flattened, 
with  eyes  small  and  set  curiously  far  apart,  so  that 
they  could  see  sideways  as  well  as  in  front.  They  had 
the  lower  jaw  very  heavily  developed,  and  practically 
no  forehead,  but  just  a  roll  of  flesh  like  a  sausage 
where  the  forehead  should  have  been,  the  whole  head 
sloping  backwards  curiously. 

The  arms  were  much  longer  in  proportion  than 
ours,  and  could  not  be  perfectly  straightened  at  the 
elbows,  a  difficulty  which  existed  with  the  knees  also. 
The  hands  and  feet  were  enormous  and  misshapen, 
and  the  heels  projected  backwards  almost  as  much  as 
the  toes  did  forwards,  so  that  the  man  was  able  to 
walk  backwards  as  rapidly  and  certainly  as  in  the 
other  direction.  This  curious  form  of  progress  was 
facilitated  by  the  possession  of  the  third  eye  at  the 
back  of  the  head,  which  still  remains  to  us  in  a  rudi- 
mentary form  as  the  pineal  gland. 

Even  yet  men  had  scarcely  any  reason,  but  only 
passions  and  instincts.  They  knew  nothing  about  fire, 
and  were  unable  to  count.  They  ate  chiefly  certain 
slimy  creatures  of  reptilian  nature,  but  they  also  dug 
up  and  ate  some  kind  of  primitive  truffle,  and  I  have 
seen  them  tearing  off  the  tops  of  gigantic  tree-ferns 
in  order  to  eat  the  seeds. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  occupation  of  this  planet 
the  separation  of  the  sexes  took  place,  and  soon  after 
that  the  second  order  of  moon-men  began  to  come 
into  incarnation.  They  were  in  the  first  place  born 
of  the  existing  humanity,  but  they  soon  established  a 
new  type  for  themselves,  becoming  smaller,  more  com- 
pact, lighter  in  colour  and  generally  speaking  much 


238  THE  INNER  LIFE 

more  what  we  should  now  call  human  in  appearance. 

There  was  constant  war  between  them  and  the 
earlier  and  more  gigantic  inhabitants,  who  caught  and 
ate  them  whenever  opportunity  offered,  but  the  later 
arrivals,  having  much  more  intellect,  were  presently 
able  to  dominate  their  gigantic  congeners,  and  to  keep 
them  in  some  sort  of  order.  Indeed,  practically  the 
whole  of  the  world  presently  passed  into  their  con- 
trol, and  the  earlier  races  had  either  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  more  civilised  life  or  to  be  driven  off  into 
the  less  desirable  parts  of  the  country. 

The  world  was  still  far  from  being  as  quiescent 
as  at  the  present  time.  Earthquakes  and  volcanic 
outbursts  were  still  painfully  common,  and  life  was 
distinctly  precarious.  The  configuration  of  the  land 
was  entirely  different,  and  mountains  seem  to  have 
attained  stupendous  heights,  unknown  to  us  now. 
There  were  enormous  waterfalls,  and  great  whirlpools 
were  also  common. 

When  the  race  passed  on  to  Mercury  we  find  on  the 
whole  a  decided  improvement.  Much  more  affection 
appeared,  and  men  showed  distinct  traces  of  unselfish- 
ness, sharing  their  food  instead  of  snarling  over  it  as 
they  had  frequently  done  at  the  earlier  stages.  The 
presence  of  the  moon-men  had  given  a  great  impetus 
to  progress,  and  though  the  bulk  of  humanity  were 
still  very  animal  and  undeveloped,  traces  of  co-opera- 
tion and  rudimentary  civilisation  already  began  to  ap- 
pear. There  is  not  much  to  be  said  with  regard  to  the 
sixth  and  seventh  planets,  so  we  will  turn  to  the  con- 
sideration of  our  present  fourth  round. 

On  globe  A  in  this  fourth  round  mind  became  defi- 
nite on  the  lower  mental  level,  and  so  we  may  say 
that  in  this  round  man  began  really  to  think.  The 
result  at  first  was  by  no  means  good.     In  the  pre- 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  239 

vious  rounds  he  had  not  been  sufficiently  developed 
to  originate  thought-forms  to  any  great  extent,  and 
so  the  elemental  essence  of  the  globes  had  been 
affected  only  by  the  thoughts  of  the  devas,  which  left 
everything  harmonious  and  peaceful.  Now  that  man 
began  to  interject  his  selfish  and  jarring  thoughts, 
this  comfortable  condition  was  very  largely  disturbed. 
Strife,  unrest  and  disharmony  were  introduced,  and 
the  animal  kingdom  drew  decisively  apart  from  man, 
and  began  to  feel  fear  and  hatred  towards  him. 

All  the  archetypes  for  humanity  were  brought 
down  at  the  beginning  of  this  round — among  others, 
archetypes  of  races  which  have  not  yet  come  into 
existence.  From  examining  these  it  is  possible  to  see 
what  the  men  of  the  future  will  be  like.  They  will 
have  finer  vehicles  in  every  way,  and  will  be  distinctly 
more  beautiful  in  appearance,  expressing  in  their 
forms  the  spiritual  forces. 

When  the  life-wave  reached  Mars  in  this  fourth 
round,  it  found  in  possession  of  the  planet,  besides  the 
ordinary  seed-humanity,  another  and  most  unpleasant 
race,  which  is  spoken  of  in  The  Secret  Doctrine  as  the 
"water-men,  terrible  and  bad."  They  were  descended 
from  the  type  which  had  been  left  behind  in  the  pre- 
vious round  as  not  fit  to  make  progress,  and  they  had 
since  then  been  engaged  in  developing  the  evil  side  of 
their  nature.  They  were  the  usual  half-reptile,  half- 
ape,  but  with  a  horrible  tarantula-like  appearance 
about  the  eyes,  and  a  fiendish  delight  in  cruelty  and 
evil.  They  seem  also  to  have  had  a  certain  amount  of 
low-class  mesmeric  power,  and  were  a  kind  of  primi- 
tive edition  of  the  Malakurumbas  as  described  by 
Madame  Blavatsky  in  her  account  of  the  hill  tribes  of 
the  Nilgiris. 

When  the  life-wave  came  around,  the  incoming  hu- 


240  THE  INNER   LIFE 

manity  soon  established  itself  sufficiently  strongly  to 
free  itself  from  the  fear  of  these  monstrous  savages. 
It  was  to  resist  possible  attacks  from  them  that  the 
first  fortifications  were  erected  by  man,  and  it  was 
also  to  be  able  to  defeat  their  malignity  that  men  be- 
gan first  to  build  primitive  cities  and  live  together  in 
considerable  numbers.  At  first  they  built  them  prin- 
cipally of  wood  and  mud,  though  sometimes  of  piles 
of  unhewn  stone. 

At  this  period  some  of  the  Lords  of  the  Moon  in- 
carnated among  them  and  taught  them  many  things 
— among  others  the  use  of  fire,  which,  however,  they 
did  not  yet  know  how  to  produce  for  themselves.  The 
greater  Beings  lighted  their  fires  for  them,  and  then 
they  kept  them  perpetually  alight.  Very  early  a 
stringent  law  was  made  that  a  public  fire  should  al- 
ways be  kept  burning  in  a  building  specially  dedi- 
cated to  it,  and  the  young  girls  who  could  not  as 
yet  either  work  or  fight  were  usually  left  to  watch  it. 
From  this  no  doubt  arose  the  first  idea  of  a  sacred  fire 
ever  to  be  kept  burning  as  a  religious  duty,  and  of  the 
appointment  of  vestal  virgins  to  guard  it. 

Sometimes,  however,  it  happened  that,  from  a  great 
flood  or  tempest  or  some  other  catastrophe,  a  whole 
district  was  left  for  a  time  without  fire,  and  then  the 
people  often  had  to  travel  far  in  order  to  obtain  and 
carry  back  to  their  homes  this  prime  necessity.  Some 
bold  spirit  conceived  the  idea  of  obtaining  fire  in  such 
an  emergency  from  the  crater  of  a  volcano,  and  many 
lives  were  at  one  time  and  another  lost  in  such  at- 
tempts.    This  was  in  the  fourth  root-race. 

The  men  of  the  fifth  root-race  were  comparatively 
advanced,  for  they  built  their  houses  of  hewn  stone, 
though  without  mortar.  They  were  a  proud  and  war- 
like people,  but  had  some  curious  ideas.    They  appear 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  241 

to  have  had  no  initiative  whatever,  and  they  regarded 
anything  new  with  horror,  as  exceedingly  immoral 
and  repulsive.  They  had  no  perseverance,  and  even 
yet  but  little  reasoning  capacity.  Everything  was 
done  on  impulse,  and  nothing  was  under  control  in 
any  way,  so  long  only  as  it  was  nothing  new.  Yet  in 
many  ways  they  would  compare  favourably  with  some 
races  which  exist  on  earth  now. 

The  men  of  the  sixth  race  were  a  much  more  power- 
ful set  of  people,  with  a  considerable  amount  of  will 
and  determination.  They  soon  dominated  the  fifth, 
taking  up  its  civilisation  and  carrying  it  much  fur- 
ther. They  succeeded  in  subduing  the  whole  of  the 
planet  and  brought  it  under  one  rule,  although  the 
enormous  majority  of  its  inhabitants  belonged  to  the 
fifth  race.  These  people  had  much  more  mind  than 
the  others,  and  possessed  some  inventive  genius,  but 
it  was  their  tendency  to  do  everything  by  fits  and 
starts,  and  not  take  up  a  piece  of  work  and  carry  it 
through.  There  was  some  psychic  development  among 
them,  but  it  was  usually  uncontrolled.  Want  of  con- 
trol, in  fact,  was  a  permanent  characteristic  of  this 
Martian  civilisation.  Everything  was  erratic,  even 
though  the  people  were  capable  in  certain  ways. 

The  people  of  the  seventh  race  in  turn  got  the  power 
into  their  hands,  not  by  force,  but  rather  by  superior 
mental  development  and  cunning.  They  were  not  so 
warlike  as  the  sixth,  and  they  were  always  smaller  in 
number,  but  they  knew  more  in  many  ways  than  the 
sixth.  They  were  coming  nearer  to  modern  ideas; 
they  had  a  more  definite  sense  of  right  and  wrong; 
they  were  less  fierce  and  more  law-abiding ;  they  had  a 
definite  policy  and  lived  according  to  it. 

Their  supremacy  was  entirely  intellectual,  and  they 
possessed  to  a  high  extent  the  art  of  combination. 


242  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Their  social  polity  seems  to  have  been  something  like 
that  of  ants  or  bees,  and  in  some  ways  they  would 
compare  favourably  with  many  races  of  the  present 
day.  It  was  in  this  race  that  we  first  noticed  writing 
as  a  fairly  common  accomplishment.  They  knew 
something  of  art,  for  they  had  both  statues  and  pic- 
tures, though  totally  different  in  every  way  from  ours. 
They  were  also  the  first  race  who  took  the  trouble 
to  make  good  roads. 

I  believe  that  I  have  already  explained  why  the 
earlier  races  of  our  present  world-period  differ  from 
ail  the  rest.  We  were  in  fact  recapitulating  the  first, 
second  and  third  rounds,  for  the  benefit  of  those  monads 
who,  though  considerably  behind  the  rest,  could  by  a 
special  effort  of  this  sort  be  helped  to  overtake  them. 
During  the  third  root-race  was  repeated  all  that  had 
happened  in  the  middle  of  the  third  round — the  ma- 
terialisation of  men  on  to  the  physical  plane  and  their 
separation  into  sexes.  After  this  had  been  fully 
achieved,  and  a  reasonable  continuity  of  form  had  been 
arrived  at,  a  number  of  special  efforts  were  made,  by 
the  authorities  in  charge  of  the  evolution,  to  consoli- 
date humanity  and  set  it  definitely  on  its  way  to  the 
higher  spiritual  advancement  which  lies  before  it  on 
the  upward  arc  of  the  chain. 

The  first  step  was  the  descent  of  seven  of  the  lead- 
ing Lords  of  the  Moon,  in  order  to  provide  vehicles 
for  the  seven  great  types  or  rays  of  men.  We  are  told 
in  The  Secret  Doctrine  how  each  stood  on  his  own  lot, 
and  cast  off  shadows  which  were  inhabited  by  the  men 
of  the  lower  race.  This  somewhat  mystical  statement 
means  simply  that  these  great  men  duplicated,  by  an 
effort  of  the  will,  their  own  etheric  doubles;  in  fact, 
they  materialised  round  themselves  an  additional 
etheric  double,  made  it  permanent  and  then  stepped 
out  of  it. 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  243 

The  other  entities  of  lower  race  who  were  just  being 
brought  down  to  the  physical  level  eagerly  seized  upon 
these  vehicles,  entered  them  and  tried  to  use  them. 
Not  being  yet  fully  adapted  to  them,  they  found  it 
difficult  to  maintain  their  position,  and  were  constantly 
slipping  out.  As  soon  as  this  happened,  some  other 
entity  would  seize  the  etheric  body,  and  slip  into  it  as 
though  it  were  an  overcoat,  only  presently  to  find  it 
slipping  from  him  in  turn,  and  to  see  it  seized  by  some- 
body else.  Many  of  these  etheric  doubles  were  made, 
and  by  degrees  the  less  developed  people  learnt  how 
to  inhabit  them  permanently,  so  that  the  process  of 
further  materialisation  could  be  undertaken,  and  in 
this  way  gradually  bodies  were  produced  which  served 
to  express  the  seven  great  types  and  their  sub-types. 

The  bodies  of  the  children  of  these  entities  were  by 
no  means  equal  to  those  of  their  fathers,  but  still  cer- 
tain types  were  established,  and  however  much  the 
forms  deteriorated  they  were  still  habitable.  As  soon 
as  these  lines  were  definite  the  special  classes  of  monads 
from  the  moon,  who  had  been  individualised  at  an 
earlier  stage  for  the  purpose,  were  brought  down  to 
take  possession  of  them.  These  were  the  three  classes 
who  had  been  individualised  on  globes  A,  B  and  C  of 
the  lunar  chain,  and  I  have  already  described  how 
the  first  of  these  classes,  the  orange-coloured  group, 
refused  to  do  its  duty  precisely  because  the  forms  were 
still  in  so  unsatisfactory  a  condition.  Because  of  this 
refusal  the  forms  destined  for  them  had  to  be  occu- 
pied by  an  altogether  lower  class;  and  the  conse- 
quence was  that,  instead  of  maintaining  the  advance- 
ment which  had  been  gained  by  so  much  effort,  the 
forms  were  allowed  to  drop  back  again  into  a  con- 
dition even  worse  than  before.  Their  undeveloped 
possessors  even  intermingled  with  some  of  the  ani- 


244  THE  INNER  LIFE 

mal  forms.  This  is  what  Madame  Blavatsky  called 
the  sin  of  the  mindless,  and  the  result  of  it  gave  us 
various  types  of  anthropoid  apes. 

The  fifth,  sixth,  and  seventh  subraces  of  the  third 
root-race  were  much  more  what  we  should  now  call 
human  than  their  predecessors.  The  description  pre- 
viously given  of  a  third-round  man  would  fit  aptly 
enough  the  man  of  the  fifth  Lemurian  subrace.  These 
have  been  often  spoken  of  as  the  egg-headed  people, 
from  the  resemblance  of  their  skulls  to  an  egg  with 
the  small  end  up.  They  had  still  but  little  forehead, 
and  the  eyes  were  set  near  the  top  of  the  egg. 

The  men  of  the  sixth  subrace  were  chiefly  remarka- 
ble for  their  colour.  They  were  no  longer  black  or 
brown-black  like  the  fifth  subrace,  but  blue-black  shad- 
ing towards  the  end  of  the  race  into  a  distinct  but 
rather  livid  blue. 

The  seventh  subrace,  beginning  as  grey-blue,  passed 
down  through  various  greyish  shades  into  a  kind  of 
grey-white.  A  fair  idea  of  the  type  of  their  faces  may 
be  obtainable  from  the  statues  which  they  themselves 
erected,  some  few  of  which  still  remain  upon  Easter 
Island.  They  had  long  horse-like  faces,  the  tip  of  the 
nose  being  at  first  above  the  centre,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  race  exactly  in  the  centre,  of  a  line  drawn  from 
the  top  of  the  forehead  to  the  chin.  The  forehead  was 
still  a  mere  roll  of  bone,  though  growing  a  little  higher 
towards  the  end  of  the  subrace.  They  had  thick 
clumsy  lips  and  broad  and  flat  noses,  characteristics 
which  have  survived  in  a  less  aggravated  form  among 
the  negroes  who  are  perhaps  now  their  nearest  repre- 
sentatives. 

No  race  of  pure  Lemurian  blood  now  exists ;  though 
the  pigmies  of  Central  Africa  appear  to  represent  a 
long-isolated    fragment    of   the    fourth    subrace,    de- 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  245 

creased  to  their  present  stature  during  millions  of 
years  in  accordance  with  that  curious  law  which  ap- 
pears to  impose  diminution  of  size  upon  the  last  relics 
of  a  dying  race.  Most  negro  tribes  have  a  considerable 
admixture  of  Atlantean  blood ;  in  the  case  of  the  Zulus, 
for  example,  we  have  in  general  build  and  bearing  a 
close  representative  of  the  Tlavatli  subrace  of  the  At- 
lanteans,  although  the  colour  and  some  of  the  faces 
are  Lemurian.  The  men  of  this  seventh  subrace  were 
great  builders  in  a  rough  cyclopean  fashion,  and  they 
had  also  a  certain  rude  idea  of  art. 

It  was  during  the  period  of  this  third  root-race  that 
there  occurred  one  of  the  greatest  events  connected 
with  human  evolution — the  descent  of  the  Lords  of  the 
Flame  from  Venus.  It  has  already  been  mentioned 
that  Venus  is  considerably  further  advanced  in  evolu- 
tion than  our  earth-chain,  and  in  consequence  of  that 
fact  many  of  her  adepts  are  able  to  move  freely  about 
the  solar  system,  and  to  go  and  offer  assistance 
wherever  it  is  needed. 

The  determined  effort  had  been  made  to  bring  up  the 
backward  members  of  our  humanity,  by  affording  the 
additional  opportunity  to  those  who  needed  it  of  run- 
ning once  more  through  such  evolution  as  the  first, 
second  and  third  rounds  can  give ;  and  when  that  was 
over  this  further  tremendous  stimulus  of  the  descent 
of  these  Great  Ones  was  brought  to  bear  as  a  final 
effort,  to  individualise  as  large  a  number  as  possible 
of  the  more  backward  entities  before  what  is  called 
"the  shutting  of  the  door,"  the  period  when  for  the 
sake  of  further  evolution  no  more  entities  could  be 
admitted  from  the  animal  kingdom  into  the  human. 

This  band  of  Great  Ones  then  arrived  from  Venus 
and  at  once  took  charge  of  evolution.  Their  Leader  is 
called  in  Indian  books  Sanat  Kumara,  and  with  Him 


246  THE  INNER  LIFE 

came  three  lieutenants  and  some  five  and  twenty  other 
adepts  as  assistants.  About  a  hundred  ordinary  human 
beings  who  were  in  some  way  affiliated  to  these  Great 
Ones,  or  perhaps  had  been  individualised  by  Them, 
were  also  brought  over  from  Venus,  and  merged  into 
the  ordinary  humanity  of  the  earth. 

It  is  these  Great  Ones  who  are  spoken  of  in  The 
Secret  Doctrine  as  projecting  the  spark  into  the  mind- 
less men  and  awakening  the  intellect  within  them.  We 
must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  by  this  rather 
curious  expression  into  supposing  that  the  Lords  threw 
some  part  of  Themselves  into  the  human  bodies.  They 
acted  rather  in  the  nature  of  a  magnetic  stimulus; 
They  shone  upon  the  people  as  the  sun  shines  upon 
flowers,  and  drew  them  up  towards  Themselves,  and  so 
enabled  them  to  develope  the  latent  spark  and  to  be- 
come individualised. 

Another  point  worthy  of  notice  is  that  none  of  the 
Lords  from  Venus  took  incarnation  in  our  humanity 
at  all.  They  did  not  (and  indeed  could  not)  take 
human  bodies;  They  build  for  Themselves  instead 
vehicles  like  the  highest  ideals  of  the  human  form  in 
appearance,  yet  absolutely  unlike  it  in  that  they  were 
uninfluenced  by  time  and  incapable  of  change  or 
decay.  I  have  myself  seen  several  of  these  marvellous 
vehicles,  and  although  they  have  been  worn  upon  this 
earth  for  sixteen  million  years  they  still  remain  pre- 
cisely as  on  the  day  when  they  were  made.  They 
must  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  permanent  materialisa- 
tion; bodies  built  like  statues,  and  yet  to  the  sight 
and  the  touch  presenting  the  appearance  of  ordinary 
living  men. 

I  know  that  in  The  Secret  Doctrine  Madame  Bla- 
vatsky  mentions  some  of  the  sons  of  mind,  who  came 
to  this  earth  to  help,  as  incarnating  among  the  people 


THE  EARTH-CHAIN  247 

whom  they  were  trying  to  benefit;  but  she  applies 
this  title  to  the  Lords  of  the  Moon  as  well  as  to  the 
Lords  of  the  Flame,  and  it  was  the  former  only  who 
entered  into  ordinary  human  bodies  and  so  for  the 
time  became  part  of  another  race.  The  great  Lords 
of  the  Flame  have  done  Their  work  long  ago,  and 
most  of  Them  have  passed  away  from  us  to  take  up 
Their  tasks  elsewhere.  Only  a  very  few  still  remain 
with  us,  holding  some  of  the  highest  offices  of  the 
Hierarchy  which  works  for  the  good  of  humanity. 

But  for  the  help  kindly  given  to  us  by  these  great 
Leaders  the  world  would  have  been  a  very  different 
place  to-day.  Without  Them  not  only  would  millions, 
who  became  human  under  the  impetus  which  They  gave, 
be  still  in  the  animal  kingdom,  but  all  the  rest  of  hu- 
manity would  be  far  behind  the  position  in  which  it 
now  stands.  This  fourth  round  is  that  which  is  espe- 
cially destined  to  the  development  of  the  desire- 
principle  in  man;  it  is  only  in  the  next  or  fifth  round 
that  he  is  intended  to  devote  himself  to  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  intellect.  Owing,  however,  to  the  stimulus 
given  by  the  Lords  of  the  Flame  the  intellect  has  al- 
ready been  considerably  developed,  and  we  are  there- 
fore a  whole  round  in  advance  of  where  we  should 
have  been  but  for  Their  help.  At  the  same  time  it 
should  be  said  that  the  intellect  of  which  we  are 
now  so  proud  is  infinitesimal  compared  to  that  which 
the  average  man  will  possess  at  the  culminating  point 
of  the  next  or  fifth  round. 

Among  other  plans  for  the  helping  on  of  evolution, 
the  Lords  of  the  Flame  brought  from  Their  planet 
certain  additions  to  our  kingdoms.  They  imported 
wheat  as  a  specially  desirable  food-stuff  for  human- 
ity, and  they  also  brought  in  bees  and  ants — the 
former  to  modify  the  vegetable  kingdom  and  assist 


248  THE  INNER  LIFE 

in  the  fertilisation  of  flowers,  as  well  as  to  provide 
a  pleasant  and  nutritious  addition  to  human  food. 
It  will  be  noted  that  both  bees  and  ants  live  in  a  man- 
ner quite  different  from  that  of  the  purely  terrestrial 
creatures,  in  that  with  them  a  group-soul  animates 
the  entire  ant  or  bee  community,  so  that  the  com- 
munity acts  with  a  single  will,  and  its  different  units 
are  actually  members  of  one  body  in  the  sense  in 
which  hands  and  feet  are  members  of  the  human 
frame.  It  might  indeed  be  said  of  them  that  they 
have  not  only  a  group-soul  but  a  group-body  also. 

Our  human  evolution  has  attempted  to  imitate  all 
these  importations,  but  with  somewhat  indifferent 
success.  In  imitating  bees  we  have  produced  wasps, 
and  in  imitating  ants  we  have  produced  what  are 
commonly  called  "white  ants/'  as  well  as  curious 
little  ant-flies  which  are  almost  indistinguishable 
from  them.  The  nearest  that  we  have  been  able  to 
get  to  wheat  is  rye,  but  the  crossing  of  the  wheat  with 
other  native  terrestrial  grasses  has  given  us  oats  and 
barley. 

After  this  comes  the  history  of  the  mighty  Atlan- 
tean  race,  to  which  even  to-day  belong  the  majority 
of  earth's  inhabitants.  Towards  the  middle  part  of 
this  race  came  in  the  first  order  of  moon-men,  ship- 
load after  ship-load  of  them,  each  taking  their  places 
just  where  they  could  themselves  evolve  best,  and 
where  they  could  be  of  the  greatest  use  to  the  rest  of 
evolving  humanity,  to  the  forefront  of  which  they 
naturally  immediately  gravitated. 

Later  than  the  great  Atlantean  race  came  the 
wonderful  history  of  the  Aryans — a  grand  civilisation 
built  up  by  the  great  Manu  Vaivasvata.  Although 
as  yet  comparatively  in  its  youth,  it  already  domi- 
nates the  world,  but  its  greatest  glory  lies  still  in  ad- 


MODES  OF  INDIVIDUALISATION  249 

vance  of  us.  Soon,  under  another  Manu  even  better 
known  to  us,  the  sixth  root-race  will  be  born.  But 
the  story  of  all  this  will  be  found  in  Mrs.  Besant's 
new  book  Man;  Whence,  How  and  Whither,  which 
contains  details  of  the  results  of  all  the  recent  in- 
vestigations into  the  subject. 


Modes  of  Individualisation 

Those  who  have  been  following  the  recent  dis- 
coveries and  investigations  will  remember  that  in  an 
article  not  long  ago  I  mentioned  the  existence,  within 
one  of  the  great  classes  of  monads,  of  two  types  which, 
though  equal  to  one  another  in  development,  differ 
greatly  in  their  intervals  between  lives,  one  of  them 
habitually  taking  nearly  double  the  length  of  heaven- 
life  which  is  customary  with  the  other.  As  the 
amount  of  spiritual  force  generated  is  roughly  equal 
in  the  two  cases,  it  follows  that  one  type  of  man  must 
exhaust  that  force  more  speedily  than  the  other.  Into 
the  same  portion  of  time,  as  we  measure  it,  he  com- 
presses a  double  amount  of  bliss ;  he  works  as  it  were 
at  higher  pressure,  and  therefore  concentrates  his  ex- 
perience and  gets  through  nearly  twice  the  amount 
in  any  given  period,  so  that  his  seven  hundred  years 
is  fully  equivalent  to  the  twelve  hundred  of  a  man  of 
the  other  type. 

The  fundamental  difference  between  these  two 
varieties  results  from  the  way  in  which,  in  each  case, 
individualisation  was  attained.  We  know  that  the 
monad  manifests  itself  upon  the  nirvanic  plane  as  the 


250  THE  INNER  LIFE 

triple  spirit,  and  that,  when  an  ego  is  called  into  exist- 
ence as  an  expression  of  this  triple  spirit,  its  mani- 
festation is  arranged  in  a  certain  well-recognised 
form  which  has  frequently  been  explained  in  our 
literature.  Of  the  three  aspects  one,  the  spirit  itself, 
remains  upon  its  own  plane;  the  second,  the  intuition 
(or,  as  our  President  has  now  decided  to  call  it,  the 
pure  reason)  puts  itself  down  one  stage  and  expresses 
itself  through  the  matter  of  the  buddhic  or  rational 
plane;*  the  third,  intelligence,  puts  itself  down  two 
planes,  and  expresses  itself  through  matter  of  the 
upper  part  of  the  mental  plane. 

The  personality  is  also  triple  in  its  manifestation, 
and  is  an  accurate  reflection  of  the  arrangement  of  the 
ego;  but  like  all  other  reflections,  it  reverses  itself. 
The  intelligence  reflects  itself  in  the  lower  mind  on 
the  lower  part  of  the  same  mental  plane:  the  pure 
reason  mirrors  itself  in  the  astral  body,  and,  in  some 
way  much  more  difficult  to  comprehend,  the  spirit  in 
turn  reflects  itself  upon  the  physical  plane. 

It  is  obvious  that,  when  an  ego  is  formed,  all  three 
of  these  manifestations  of  the  spirit  must  be  called 
forth,  but  the  first  connection  may  be  made  through 
any  one  of  the  three.  It  has  previously  been  explained 
that  individualisation  from  the  animal  kingdom  usually 
takes  place  through  association  with  the  humanity 
of  the  period.  Such  examples  of  it  as  we  occasionally 
see  taking  place  round  us  at  the  present  time  will 
serve  as  instances  for  us.  Some  particular  domestic 
animal,  well  treated  by  its  human  friends,  is  stimu- 


*  Our  President  has  recently  decided  to  endeavour  as  far  as 
possible  to  replace  the  Sanskrit  terms  in  our  literature  by 
English  words;  from  this  point  onwards,  therefore,  I  shall  use 
the  words  "pure  reason"  in  place  of  "buddhi,"  and  "rational 
plane"  instead  of  "buddhic  plane". 


MODES  OF  INDIVIDUALISATION  251 

lated  bv  its  constant  contact  with  them  up  to  the 
point  where  it  breaks  away  from  the  group-soul  to 
which  it  has  previously  belonged.  The  process  has 
been  fully  described  in  Man  Visible  and  Invisible  and 
The  Christian  Creed,  and  I  need  not  repeat  that  de- 
scription here.  But  a  point  which  is  not  mentioned 
in  those  earlier  works  is  the  possibility  that  the  first 
connection  may  be  made  in  various  ways — between 
the  lower  mind  and  the  higher;  between  the  astral 
body  and  the  pure  reason;  or  between  the  physical 
body  and  the  spirit  itself. 

A  domestic  animal  (when  well  treated)  usually 
developes  intense  affection  for  its  master,  and  a  strong 
desire  to  understand  him,  to  please  him,  and  to  antici- 
pate what  he  is  going  to  do.  Sometimes,  for  a  few 
minutes,  the  master  turns  affectionate  thought  upon 
the  animal,  or  makes  a  distinct  effort  to  teach  him 
something;  and  in  these  cases  there  is  a  direct  and 
intentional  action  passing  from  the  mental  or  astral 
body  of  the  master  to  the  corresponding  vehicle  of  the 
animal.  But  this  is  comparatively  rare,  and  the 
greater  portion  of  the  work  is  done  without  any  direct 
volition  on  either  side,  simply  by  the  incessant  and 
inevitable  action  due  to  the  proximity  of  the  two 
entities  concerned.  The  astral  and  mental  vibrations 
of  the  man  are  far  stronger  and  more  complex  than 
those  of  the  animal,  and  they  are  consequently  exer- 
cising a  never-ceasing  pressure  upon  the  latter. 

We  can  see  therefore  that  the  character  and  type 
of  the  master  will  have  a  great  influence  on  the  destiny 
of  the  animal.  If  the  master  be  an  emotional  man, 
full  of  strong  affections,  the  probability  is  that  the 
development  of  any  domestic  animal  of  his  will  be 
chiefly  through  its  astral  body,  and  that  the  final 
breaking  of  the  link  with  the  group-soul  will  be  due 


252  THE  INNER  LIFE 

to  some  sudden  outrush  of  intense  affection,  which 
will  reach  the  rational  aspect  of  the  floating  monad 
belonging  to  it,  and  will  thus  cause  the  formation  of 
an  ego.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  master  be  unemo- 
tional and  if  the  chief  activities  in  his  nature  are  of 
the  intellectual  type,  it  is  the  nascent  mental  body 
of  the  animal  which  will  be  stimulated,  and  the  proba- 
bilities are  that  individualisation  will  be  reached  be- 
cause that  mental  development  rises  to  a  level  too 
great  to  permit  any  longer  of  enfoldment  within  the 
group-soul.  In  yet  another  case,  if  the  master  be  a 
man  of  great  spirituality  or  of  intensely  strong  will, 
while  the  animal  will  develope  great  affection  and  ad- 
miration for  him,  it  will  yet  be  the  will  within  the 
animal  which  is  principally  stimulated.  This  will 
show  itself  in  the  physical  body  by  intense  activity, 
and  indomitable  resolution  to  achieve  whatever  the 
creature  may  attempt,  especially  in  the  way  of  service 
to  his  master. 

It  is  difficult  to  rid  oneself  of  the  idea  that  the  dis- 
tance between  the  spirit  and  the  physical  body  must 
be  far  greater  than  that  between  the  lower  mind  and 
the  intelligence,  or  between  the  astral  and  rational 
bodies.  But  this  is  not  really  so,  for  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  distance  in  space  at  all,  but  of  the  conveying 
of  a  sympathetic  vibration  from  the  reflection  to  the 
original.  When  we  think  of  it  in  this  way,  it  is  ob- 
vious that  each  reflection  must  be  in  direct  connection 
with  its  original,  whatever  the  distance  between  them 
may  be — in  closer  connection  than  it  is  with  any  ob- 
ject which  is  out  of  the  direct  line,  no  matter  how 
much  nearer  in  space  the  latter  object  may  be. 

The  desire  of  the  animal  to  rise  constitutes  a  steady 
upward  pressure  along  all  these  lines,  and  the  point 
at  which  that  pressure  finally  breaks  through  the  re- 


MODES  OF  INDIVIDUALISATION  253 

strictions,  and  forms  the  required  link  between  the 
monad  and  its  personality,  determines  certain  charac- 
teristics of  the  new  ego  which  thus  comes  into  exist- 
ence. The  actual  formation  of  the  link  is  usually  in- 
stantaneous if  the  first  connection  is  made  through 
affection  or  will,  but  it  is  much  more  gradual  when 
it  is  a  case  of  mental  development ;  and  this  also  makes 
a  considerable  difference  in  the  current  of  the  future 
evolution  of  the  entity. 

In  the  course  of  the  recent  investigations  we  dis- 
covered that,  out  of  a  great  mass  of  people  who  were 
individualised  practically  simultaneously  at  a  certain 
point  in  the  moon-chain,  those  who  had  attained  in- 
dividualisation  gradually  by  intellectual  development 
came  into  incarnation  upon  earth  roughly  about  one 
million  years  ago,  and  have  since  taken  between  any 
two  lives  an  average  interval  of  about  twelve  hundred 
years;  whereas  those  who  had  attained  individualisa- 
tion  through  an  instantaneous  uprush  of  affection  or 
will  did  not  come  into  terrestrial  incarnation  until 
about  four  hundred  thousand  years  later,  though  as 
they  have  since  taken  an  average  interval  between 
lives  of  about  seven  hundred  years  their  condition  at 
the  present  time  is  practically  the  same. 

I  cannot  emphasise  too  strongly  that  this  difference 
of  interval  must  not  in  the  least  be  supposed  to  indi- 
cate that  those  who  came  in  later  generate  less  of 
spiritual  force  during  their  earth-lives.  If  there  be  any 
difference,  it  appears  to  be  in  favour  of  Llie  men  of 
shorter  interval,  for  they  (being  as  a  rule  more  devo- 
tional) seem  to  be  able  to  generate  even  more  force 
in  a  given  space  of  time  than  the  others.  Perhaps  it 
would  express  the  facts  still  better  to  say  that  they 
produce  in  a  way  a  different  kind  of  force;  probably 
both  are  necessary,  each  as  a  complement  to  the  other. 


254  THE  INNER  LIFE 

The  difference  of  interval  between  lives  means  merely 
that  they  take  their  bliss  in  a  much  more  concentrated 
form,  and  therefore  work  out  the  result  of  an  equal 
expenditure  of  force  in  much  less  time.  Indeed,  it  ap- 
pears very  much  as  though  the  period  of  their  respec- 
tive entries  upon  terrestrial  life  had  been  arranged  es- 
pecially in  order  that,  after  running  through  about  the 
same  number  of  incarnations,  they  might  arrive  at  the 
same  point,  and  be  able  to  work  together. 

Later  investigations  have  convinced  us  that  there 
is  far  greater  flexibility  with  regard  to  these  intervals 
between  lives  than  we  at  first  supposed.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  amount  of  force  which  a  man  has  to 
work  out,  first  in  the  astral  plane  and  then  in  the 
heaven-world,  is  precisely  what  he  has  developed  dur- 
ing his  earthly  life — plus  of  course  such  further  force 
of  the  same  kind  as  he  may  generate  during  his  astral 
or  heaven-lives  respectively.  But  it  is  evident  that  the 
rate  at  which  this  amount  of  force  exhausts  itself  is 
by  no  means  always  the  same.  The  necessity  of  bring- 
ing groups  of  people  into  incarnation  together,  in 
order  not  only  that  they  may  work  out  mutual  karmic 
inter-relations,  but  also  that  they  may  all  learn  to 
labour  together  towards  one  great  end,  is  evidently  a 
dominant  factor  in  regulating  the  rate  of  the  expendi- 
ture of  force. 

A  study  of  the  lives  of  Alcyone  will  show  that  this 
must  be  so,  since  it  is  unquestionable  that  a  number 
of  people,  living  each  his  or  her  own  life,  must  in- 
evitably generate  widely-varying  amounts  of  spiritual 
force;  yet  in  life  after  life  of  that  entrancing  story 
it  is  contrived  that  these  people  shall  come  back  to- 
gether, in  order  that  they  may  pass  through  similar 
preparatory  experiences,  and  that  the  bonds  of  affec- 
tion between  them  may  be  knit  so  strongly  that  they 


MODES  OF  INDIVIDUALISATION  255 

will  be  incapable  of  misunderstanding  or  mistrusting 
one  another,  when  the  strain  of  the  real  work  comes 
upon  them  in  the  future. 

Besides  the  differences  in  the  mode  of  individualisa- 
tion  which  I  have  just  mentioned,  there  are  also  differ- 
ences in  the  degree  of  individualisation,  which  corre- 
sponds to  the  stage  of  development  at  which  it  takes 
place.  It  has  been  explained  in  Theosophical  litera- 
ture that  as  an  animal  group-soul  gradually  evolves 
within  its  own  kingdom  it  breaks  up  into  smaller  and 
smaller  subdivisions.  Quadrillions  of  flies  or  mos- 
quitoes are  attached  to  one  group-soul,  millions  of  rats 
or  mice,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  rabbits  or  sparrows. 
But  when  we  come  to  such  animals  as  the  lion,  the 
tiger,  the  leopard,  the  deer,  the  wolf  or  the  wild  boar, 
only  a  few  thousand  will  be  found  to  belong  to  one 
soul,  while  among  domesticated  animals  such  as  sheep 
and  oxen  the  number  is  smaller  still. 

Individualisation  is  possible  only  from  seven  kinds 
of  animals — one  for  each  of  the  seven  great  lines  or 
types.  Of  these  we  already  know  certainly  the  ele- 
phant, the  monkey,  the  dog  and  the  cat;  and  the  horse 
is  possibly  a  fifth.  Up  to  each  of  these  heads  of  types 
leads  a  long  line  of  wild  animals,  which  has  not  yet 
been  fully  investigated;  but  we  know  that  wolves, 
foxes,  jackals  and  all  such  creatures  culminate  in  the 
dog,  and  lions,  tigers,  leopards,  jaguars  and  ocelots  in 
the  domestic  cat.  When  we  reach  these  seven  indi- 
vidualisable  animals  we  find  usually  only  a  few  hun- 
dred attached  to  each  group-soul,  and  as  their  develop- 
ment continues  the  souls  break  up  rapidly.  The  pariah 
dog  of  India  or  Constantinople  is  nothing  but  a  half- 
tamed  wolf,  and  a  thousand  of  such  creatures  may  well 
represent  only  one  soul;  but  in  the  case  of  the  really 
intelligent  pet  dog  or  cat  one  soul  hovers  over  not  more 
than  ten  or  a  dozen  bodies. 


256  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Now  it  makes  much  difference  at  what  stage  of  this 
higher  animal  life  individualisation  takes  place,  and 
this  is  dependent  largely  upon  the  opportunities  which 
offer  themselves.  Even  a  pariah  dog  is  presumably 
capable  of  individualisation,  but  it  could  be  only  a 
very  ie»w  type  of  individualisation.  The  animals  of 
the  moon-chain  were  not  the  same  as  those  of  to-day, 
and  so  we  cannot  draw  exact  parallels;  but  assuredly 
the  pariah  dog  could  at  most  individualise  into  noth- 
ing more  than  a  separated  fragment  of  the  group-soul 
with  a  monad  hovering  over  it,  connected  perhaps  by 
a  line  or  two  of  spiritual  matter — corresponding 
therefore  to  the  animal-men  from  the  moon,  who  led 
the  way  in  filling  the  forms  in  the  first  round.  On. 
the  other  hand  the  really  intelligent  and  affectionate 
pet  dog  or  cat,  whose  owner  looks  after  him  properly 
and  makes  a  friend  of  him,  would  certainly,  when 
he  individualised,  obtain  a  causal  body  at  least  equiva- 
lent to  that  of  the  first  order  of  moon-men,  while 
various  intermediate  types  of  domestic  animals  would 
produce  the  basket-work  causal  body,  such  as  that 
obtained  by  the  second  order  of  the  moon-men. 

It  will  be  seen  therefore  that  the  amount  of  real 
work  done  in  the  attainment  of  any  given  level  is 
practically  always  the  same,  though  in  some  cases 
more  of  it  is  done  in  one  kingdom  and  less  in  another. 
It  has  already  been  made  abundantly  clear,  in  the 
course  of  our  investigations,  that  entities  attaining  to 
the  culminating  point  in  one  kingdom  do  not  enter 
the  lower  levels  of  the  next  higher  kingdom.  The  life 
which  ensouls  an  oak-tree,  a  banyan,  or  a  rose-bush 
will  pass  directly  into  the  mammalian  order  when  it 
enters  the  animal  kingdom;  whereas  the  life  which 
leaves  the  vegetable  kingdom  at  a  much  lower  level 
may  pass  into  the  stage  of  insects  and  reptiles. 


MODES  OF  INDIVIDUALISATION  25? 

In  just  the  same  way,  a  being  who  reaches  the  sum- 
mit of  intelligence  and  affection  possible  in  the  ani- 
mal kingdom  will  overleap  the  absolutely  primitive 
conditions  of  humanity,  and  will  show  himself  as  a 
first-class  individuality  from  the  beginning  of  his 
human  career;  whereas  one  who  leaves  the  animal 
kingdom  at  a  lower  level  will  quite  naturally  have  to 
begin  correspondingly  lower  down  in  the  scale  of  hu- 
manity. This  is  the  explanation  of  a  remark  once 
made  by  one  of  our  Masters,  when  referring  to  the 
cruelty  and  superstition  shown  by  the  great  mass  of 
humanity:  "They  have  individualised  too  soon;  they 
are  not  yet  worthy  of  the  human  form." 

The  three  methods  of  individualisation  which  I 
have  already  mentioned,  through  the  development  of 
affection,  intellect,  and  will,  are  the  normal  lines 
which  we  may  suppose  to  have  been  intended  in  the 
scheme  of  things.  Individuality  is,  however,  occa- 
sionally attained  in  certain  other  ways  which  we  may 
perhaps  define  as  irregular  methods,  since  it  would 
seem  that  they  can  scarcely  have  been  part  of  the 
original  plan. 

For  example,  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  round 
of  the  moon-chain  a  certain  group  of  beings  were  at 
the  point  of  individualisation,  and  were  drawn  to- 
wards it  by  their  association  with  some  of  the  per- 
fected inhabitants  whom  we  call  the  Lords  of  the 
Moon.  An  unfortunate  twist,  however,  entered  into 
their  development,  and  they  began  to  take  so  great  a 
pride  in  their  intellectual  advance,  that  that  became 
the  prominent  feature  in  their  character,  so  that  they 
were  working  not  to  gain  the  approval  or  affection  of 
their  masters,  but  to  show  their  advantage  over  their 
fellow-animals,  and  to  excite  their  envy.  It  was  this 
latter  motive  which   pushed  them   on   to  make   the 


258  THE  INNER  LIFE 

efforts  which  resulted  in  individualisation,  and  so  the 
causal  bodies  which  were  formed  showed  almost  no 
colour  but  orange.  The  authorities  in  charge  of  that 
stage  of  evolution  nevertheless  allowed  them  to  indi- 
vidualise, apparently  because  if  they  had  been  per- 
mitted to  continue  their  evolution  in  the  animal  king- 
dom any  further,  they  would  have  become  worse  in- 
stead of  better.  We  have  therefore  the  extraordinary 
spectacle  of  a  detachment  of  egos  (what  we  have 
lately  been  calling  a  ship-load),  numbering  about 
two  millions,  who  had  individualised  themselves  en- 
tirely by  pride,  and  who,  though  clever  enough  in 
their  way,  possessed  but  little  of  any  other  quality. 

The  fruitage  of  the  first,  second  and  third  globes 
of  the  seventh  round  of  the  lunar  chain  was  intended 
to  play  a  certain  part  in  the  development  of  human- 
ity on  the  earth.  At  a  certain  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  that  planet  we  know  that  seven  of  the  Lords 
of  the  Moon — one  belonging  to  each  great  type —  de- 
scended to  the  earth  and  began  to  cast  off  etheric 
bodies  for  the  shaping  of  the  new  race.  The  entities 
who  occupied  these  vehicles  intermarried,  and  when 
their  descendants  became  numerous  these  three  ship- 
loads of  egos  were  called  upon  to  descend  and  occupy 
these  vehicles,  and  thus  establish  the  type  of  the  human- 
ity that  was  to  come.  "One-third  refuses;  two-thirds 
obey."  It  was  the  members  of  this  orange-coloured 
ship-load  from  planet  A  of  the  lunar  chain  who  de- 
clined these  lowly  vehicles,  while  the  golden-coloured 
egos  from  globe  B  and  the  rose-coloured  group  from 
globe  C  accepted  the  conditions,  entered  into  the 
vehicles,  and  fulfilled  their  destiny. 

The  future  career  of  these  orange-coloured  egos 
showed  clearly  enough  the  undesirability  of  the  line 
along  which  they  had  come,  for  not  only  did  they  re- 


MODES  OF  INDIVIDUALISATION  259 

fuse  to  take  the  primitive  bodies  which  were  assigned 
to  them  (thus  leaving  them  to  be  occupied  by  very 
much  lower  animal  types,  and  so  leading  to  the  sin 
of  the  mindless),  but  all  through  their  history  their 
arrogance  and  unruliness  caused  constant  trouble  to 
themselves  and  to  others  who  were  infected  by  their 
foolishness.  Eventually  the  law  of  evolution  forced 
them  to  occupy  bodies  in  many  respects  considerably 
worse  than  those  which  had  at  first  been  offered  to 
them;  and  though  that  lesson  taught  them  some- 
thing, and  they  seem  to  have  recognised  that  a  mistake 
had  been  made,  even  when  they  mingled  with  ordi- 
nary humanity  we  find  them  invariably  in  opposition, 
and  perpetually  making  trouble  by  standing  upon 
their  own  dignity  at  inopportune  moments.  By  con- 
stant collision  with  natural  laws  the  great  majority 
of  them  have  by  degrees  been  driven  more  or  less  into 
line  with  the  rest  of  humanity ;  but  even  now  we  may 
distinguish  some  of  them  by  the  occasional  recrudes- 
cence of  their  old  objectionable  characteristics;  they 
are  still  "turbulent  and  aggressive,  independent  and 
separative,  prone  to  discontent  and  eager  for  change," 
as  our  President  has  described  them. 

Some  few  of  the  cleverest  of  them  have  made  no  in- 
considerable mark  upon  human  history,  for  they  de- 
veloped into  the  celebrated  "Lords  of  the  Dark  Face" 
of  Atlantis,  of  whom  we  read  so  much  in  The  Secret 
Doctrine;  and  later  such  special  distortions  became 
world-devastating  conquerors,  caring  nothing  for  the 
thousands  who  were  slain  or  starved  in  the  course  of 
the  gratification  of  their  mad  ambition,  or  (later  still) 
equally  unscrupulous  American  millionaires,  well 
called  by  their  parasites  "Napoleons  of  finance." 

Another  abnormal  method  in  which  individuality 
has  been  gained  is  through  fear.     In  the  case  of  ani- 


260  THE  INNER   LIFE 

mals  who  have  been  cruelly  treated  by  man,  there  have 
been  cases  in  which  the  cunning  developed  by  strenu- 
ous efforts  to  understand  and  avoid  the  cruelty  has 
caused  the  breaking  away  from  the  group-soul,  and 
produced  an  ego  possessing  only  a  very  low  type  of 
intellectuality — an  ego  who,  when  he  puts  himself 
down  into  the  lower  planes,  must  inevitably,  because 
of  the  nature  of  his  permanent  atoms,  draw  round 
him  mental  and  astral  vehicles  capable  only  of  express- 
ing the  less  desirable  passions. 

A  variant  of  this  case  is  the  type  of  ego  in  which 
the  attitude  caused  by  the  cruelty  has  been  rather  that 
of  intense  hatred  than  of  fear.  That  force  also  is 
strong  enough  to  develope  such  intelligence  as  may  be 
necessary  to  injure  the  oppressor,  and  in  that  way 
also  individuality  has  been  secured.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  imagine  the  kind  of  human  being  that  would  be 
produced  along  such  lines  as  these,  and  this  is  the 
explanation  of  the  existence  of  the  fiendishly  cruel  and 
blood-thirsty  savages  of  whom  we  sometimes  hear,  of 
the  inquisitors  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  of  those  who 
torture  children  in  the  present  day.  Of  them  it  is  dis- 
tinctly true  that  they  have  come  into  humanity  far 
too  soon,  and  are  displaying  under  its  guise  an  exag- 
gerated form  of  some  of  the  very  worst  characteris- 
tics of  the  most  unpleasant  types  of  animals. 

Yet  another  variant  is  the  entity  who  is  individual- 
ised by  an  intense  desire  for  power  over  others,  such 
as  is  sometimes  shown  by  the  chief  bull  of  a  herd.  An 
ego  developed  in  such  a  way  often  manifests  great 
cruelty,  and  appears  to  take  pleasure  in  it,  probably 
because  to  torture  others  is  a  manifestation  of  his 
power  over  them. 

On  the  other  hand  those  who  have  been  individual- 
ised at  a  comparatively  low  level  along  one  of  the 


MODES   OF  INDIVIDUALISATION  261 

regular  lines — as  by  affection — provide  us  with  a  type 
of  equally  primitive  but  joyous  and  good-natured 
savages — savages,  in  fact,  who  are  not  savage  but 
kindly,  as  are  many  of  the  tribes  to  be  found  in  some 
of  the  islands  of  the  Southern  Seas. 

As  we  look  at  these  early  stages  of  our  develop- 
ment upon  the  Moon-chain,  it  often  seems  as  though 
the  mode  of  individualisation  of  an  ego  depended  upon 
mere  chance — upon  "the  accident  of  environment." 
Yet  I  do  not  believe  that  this  is  so;  even  for  animals 
the  environment  is  not  accidental,  and  there  is  no 
room  for  chance  in  a  perfectly-ordered  universe.  I 
should  not  be  surprised  if  further  investigation  should 
reveal  to  us  that  the  very  mode  of  the  individualisa- 
tion was  somehow  pre-determined  either  for  or  by  the 
monad  himself,  with  a  view  to  preparation  for  what- 
ever portion  of  the  great  work  he  is  to  undertake  in 
the  future.  There  will  come  a  time  when  we  shall 
be  part  of  the  great  Heavenly  Man — not  in  the  least 
as  a  myth  or  a  poetic  symbol,  but  as  a  vivid  and  actual 
fact,  which  we  ourselves  have  seen.  That  celestial  body 
has  many  members;  each  of  these  members  has  its 
own  function  to  fulfil,  and  the  living  cells  which  are 
to  form  part  of  them  need  widely-different  experi- 
ences to  prepare  them.  It  may  well  be  that  from  the 
dawn  of  evolution  the  parts  have  been  chosen — that 
each  monad  has  his  destined  line  of  evolution,  and  that 
his  freedom  of  action  is  concerned  chiefly  with  the  rate 
at  which  he  shall  move  along  that  line.  In  any  case 
our  duty  is  clear — to  push  ahead  as  rapidly  as  we  can, 
watching  ever  to  discern  the  divine  purpose,  living 
only  to  fulfil  it,  striving  always  to  help  onwards  the 
great  scheme  of  the  Logos  by  helping  our  fellowman. 


262  THE  INNER  LIFE 


The  Seven  Types 

The  seven  great  types  or  rays  do  not  correspond  to 
the  planes,  for  each  type  is  to  be  found  upon  all  the 
planes.  One  may  symbolize  the  planes  as  horizontal, 
as  they  are  usually  represented  in  Theosophical  dia- 
grams; and  then  if  we  proceed  to  draw  seven  vertical 
columns  cutting  across  the  seven  planes  at  right 
angles,  those  columns  will  symbolize  the  types.  This 
will  cut  up  our  diagram  into  forty-nine  squares,  and 
in  reality  each  of  these  forty-nine  has  also  forty-nine 
subdivisions  inthe  same  manner,  because  each  plane 
has  seven  sub-planes,  and  each  type  has  seven  sub- 
types, which  are  produced  by  the  influence  upon  it  of 
each  of  the  other  types  in  turn.  A  diagram  which 
clearly  explains  this  may  be  found  in  The  Secret  Doc- 
trine, Vol.  iii.  p.  483. 

There  are  seven  great  types  of  men,  coming  out 
from  the  seven  great  Planetary  Logoi.  Each  of  us 
belongs  to  one  of  these,  but  each  has  also  a  sub-ray 
from  one  of  the  other  types. 

If  a  man  belongs  to  the  blue  or  devotional  type,  and 
has  the  wisdom  ray  as  his  sub-type,  he  will  be  wise  in 
his  devotion;  but  if  his  sub-ray  be  also  devotional,  he 
may  be  blindly  devoted,  having  no  discrimination,  and 
therefore  unable  to  see  any  blemish  in  the  object  of 
his  worship. 

Yet  though  each  of  us,  as  has  been  said,  has  come 
out  through  one  or  other  of  the  seven  Planetary  Logoi, 
it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  he  will  return  through 
the  same  Logos.  Each  of  the  great  root-races  will 
produce  as  its  flower  and  result  what  is  called  in  the 
sacred  books  a  Heavenly  Man,  one  mighty  Being  who 


THE  SEVEN  TYPES  263 

actually  includes  within  Himself  all  those  members  of 
the  root-race  who  have  made  themselves  worthy  of 
such  inclusion — includes  them  precisely  as  our  physical 
body  includes  millions  of  cells.  True,  we  have  all  of 
us  incarnated  in  other  root-races,  but  we  belong  to 
that  root-race  in  which  we  finally  succeed  in  attaining 
adeptship,  and  it  will  be  of  the  Heavenly  Man  which 
represents  that  race  that  we  shall  form  a  part. 

For  each  root-race  there  is  a  Manu  and  a  Bod- 
hisattva,  and  these  are  respectively  the  brain  and  the 
heart  of  the  Heavenly  Man  of  the  root-race.  We  who 
work  in  the  Theosophical  Society  are  most  of  us  fol- 
lowing along  one  or  other  of  these  two  lines,  and  so 
we  shall  find  ourselves  grouped  round  one  or  other  of 
those  centres  in  that  glorious  future.  But  in  the 
Heavenly  Man,  as  in  the  man  on  earth,  there  are  seven 
centres,  and  each  of  these  centres  is  represented  by  an 
official  of  the  Occult  Hierarchy.  Some  men  will  be 
drawn  to  one  of  these  centres,  and  some  to  another, 
so  that  there  is  the  fullest  possibility  of  development 
for  all  possible  types  and  dispositions. 

These  Heaven-born  Men  so  formed  are  the  true  in- 
habitants of  the  solar  system,  the  mind-born  sons  of 
the  Planetary  Logoi,  destined  themselves  to  be  the 
Planetary  Logoi  of  the  future,  and  of  them  we  shall 
be  living,  conscious  component  parts;  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  each  of  us  will  have  the  fullest  liberty  and 
the  highest  possible  activity.  Incomprehensible,  of 
course,  to  our  present  power  of  thought,  but  utterly 
true,  nevertheless.  Well  for  us  if  we  can  attain  our 
level  and  take  our  part  along  with  the  great  Masters 
who  are  the  leaders  of  our  Society.  If  that  be  too  high 
for  us  at  present,  there  will  be  other  opportunities  in 
the  future — others,  and  yet  others,  stretching  away  in 
endless  vistas.    Yet  those  of  us  who  are  earnest  stu- 


264  THE  INNER  LIFE 

dents  in  this  Society  have  now  a  glorious  opportunity, 
of  which  we  should  do  well  to  take  the  fullest  advan- 
tage; for  if  we  lose  it  who  knows  how  many  lives  of 
hard  work  it  will  take  us  to  earn  such  another?  Soon 
the  Teacher  of  angels  and  men  will  show  Himself  upon 
earth  once  more ;  happy  are  we  in  that  we  are  allowed 
to  help  (even  though  it  be  ever  so  little)  to  prepare  the 
way  for  His  coming;  happier  yet  will  be  those  of  us 
who  shall  see  Him  face  to  face,  who  will  be  privileged 
to  work  under  Him  in  the  service  of  humanity  when 
that  day  of  the  Lord  shall  dawn! 


Stray  Notes  on  Races 

The  Irish  Race 

The  Irish  are  not  of  Atlantean  stock,  but  belong  to 
the  fourth  sub-race  of  the  fifth  root-race.  It  is  true 
that  Ireland  was  part  of  the  Atlantean  continent,  and 
that  the  earliest  inhabitants  were  of  the  Rmoahal,  the 
first  sub-race  of  the  fourth  root-race;  but  no  recog- 
nisable trace  now  remains  of  these  aborigines,  who 
were  a  small  dark  people  somewhat  of  the  type  of  the 
Laplanders  of  the  present  day.  Nor  is  there  much 
now  left  to  bear  witness  to  the  first  invasion  from 
Africa  of  a  host  led  by  an  Ethiopian  queen ;  but  there 
are  still  some  tokens  of  the  next  arrivals — a  race 
called  the  Firbolgs — big,  hairy-faced  men  who  appear 
to  have  come  down  from  Iceland — probably  people  of 
the  same  stock  as  the  Ainus  of  Japan.  The  great  ma- 
jority of  the  Irish  nation  (not  counting  the  Scottish 
immigrants  of  Ulster)    is  composed  of  the  descend- 


STRAY  NOTES  ON  RACES:  IRISH  265 

ants  of  two  races — the  Tuatha-de-Danaan  and  the 
Milesian.  The  Tuatha-de-Danaan  were  men  of  the 
Caucasian  stock,  practically  identical  with  the  early 
Greeks,  and  they  reached  Ireland  by  a  circuitous 
northern  route,  having  moved  up  gradually  through 
Russia,  and  round  by  Sweden  and  Norway,  in  the 
manner  of  the  curious  slow,  wholesale  migrations  of 
those  earlier  days.  They  were  a  handsome  race  with 
oval  faces,  clear  complexion,  mostly  dark  hair,  and 
deep  blue  or  almost  violet  eyes.  Sometimes  the  hair 
was  lighter  and  the  eyes  were  grey,  but  the  other 
type  was  the  more  common,  and  one  may  often  see 
it  exactly  reproduced  among  the  Irish  peasants  of 
to-day. 

The  Tuatha-de-Danaan  were  not  only  so  much 
handsomer,  but  also  intellectually  and  spiritually  so 
very  much  in  advance  of  the  mixed  race  which  they 
found  in  Ireland  that  they  were  regarded  by  the 
latter  as  of  celestial  lineage,  and  to  this  day  tradition 
speaks  of  them  as  a  race  of  gods  who  ruled  Ireland 
during  a  golden  age,  which  is  by  no  means  so  en- 
tirely legendary  as  historians  generally  suppose.  Ire- 
land was  unquestionably  the  seat  of  a  high  civilisa- 
tion and  a  centre  of  philosophy  and  learning  while 
the  neighbouring  island  of  England  was  largely 
covered  by  dense  forests  and  peopled  by  naked  sav- 
ages who  painted  themselves  blue. 

The  Tuatha-de-Danaan  reigned  in  Ireland  through 
many  ages  of  power  and  great  glory,  but  their  civili- 
sation waned  in  time,  as  all  others  do,  and  at  last 
they  were  overcome  by  an  invasion  of  the  Milesians 
from  Spain — a  race  far  inferior  to  them  in  culture, 
spirituality  and  general  development,  but  having  the 
rude  physical  strength  of  youth  and  much  knowledge 
of   the   lower   magic.      These   were    a    bullet-headed 


266  THE  INNER  LIFE 

psople,  rugged  and  often  positively  ugly  of  face, 
with  light  or  vividly  red  hair — a  type  which  may  also 
still  be  seen  sometimes  among  the  peasantry  of  the 
southern  part  of  the  country  almost  in  its  original 
purity.  Far  inferior  as  they  were  to  the  Tuatha-de- 
Danaan,  the  Milesians  were  still  a  variant  of  that 
same  fourth  sub-race  of  the  Aryans;  and  since  these 
two  types  are  its  main  constituents,  it  is  to  that  sub- 
race  that  we  must  assign  the  Irish  of  the  present  day 
— Celts,  near  of  kin  to  the  Highlander  of  Scotland, 
the  Welshman,  the  Cornishman  or  the  Breton. 

At  present  there  is  unfortunately  a  wide-spread 
poverty  and  general  lack  of  prosperity  among  the 
Irish  nation  in  its  native  Erin — a  condition  of  affairs 
which  the  Irish  usually  attribute  to  oppression  by 
the  conquering  English.  This  "oppression,"  so  far 
as  it  is  a  fact,  and  not  a  figment  of  the  imagination, 
comes  from  the  radical  difference  between  the  two 
races,  which  causes  a  curiously  complete  lack  of  mutual 
understanding.  The  stolid  matter-of-fact  Anglo- 
Saxon  cannot  possibly  comprehend  the  point  of  view 
of  the  imaginative  and  poetical  Irishman,  and  the 
motives  of  the  latter  are  always  a  sealed  book  to  the 
former.  The  average  English  peasant  lives  almost 
entirely  upon  the  physical  plane,  and  his  thought  runs 
naturally  along  lines  connected  with  his  every-day 
interests  and  experiences.  The  average  Irish  peasant 
of  the  south  and  west  lives  very  much  upon  the  astral 
plane,  and  cares  comparatively  little  about  physical 
conditions  so  long  as  he  has  the  accustomed  astral 
atmosphere  about  him.  His  thoughts  are  usually  far 
away  from  the  mechanical  daily  round,  and  occupied 
with  legends  of  the  past,  or  with  the  stories  of  saints 
and  angels  and  fairies. 

I  well  remember  the   plaintive   amazement  of  an 


STRAY  NOTES  ON  RACES:  IRISH  267 

English  landlord  who,  shocked  at  the  condition  of 
some  of  the  cabins  on  his  estate,  had  built  for  his 
labourers  neat  little  staring  brick  cottages  with  all 
the  latest  improvements.  With  great  difficulty  he 
persuaded  some  of  the  peasants  to  try  the  new  dwell- 
ings upon  which  they  looked  with  such  strong  dis- 
favour, but  after  a  day  or  two  every  one  of  them 
went  back  again  to  the  old  cabins  with  their  mud 
floors  and  leaking  roofs,  vowing  that  there  was  no 
home  like  the  old  home,  with  all  its  inconveniences. 
The  truth  was  that  they  thought  so  little  of  the 
physical  that  these  inconveniences  were  hardly  felt 
at  all,  and  weighed  as  nothing  in  the  balance  against 
the  comfortable  homelike  feeling  of  the  astral  radia- 
tions of  the  old  walls,  to  which  they  had  been  accus- 
tomed from  childhood.  But  the  Englishman  knew 
nothing  about  astral  vibrations,  and  could  only  mar- 
vel at  the  stupidity  and  obstinacy  of  people  who 
actually  preferred  a  miserable  and  unquestionably 
filthy  old  hovel  to  a  new  and  clean  cottage. 

The  drunkenness  which  is  so  sadly  common  among 
the  peasantry  is  largely  referable  to  the  same  cause; 
it  is  not  physical  but  astral  sensation  which  is  sought, 
and  to  some  extent  obtained,  by  means  of  the  absorp- 
tion of  alcohol.  The  average  Irish  peasant  may  per- 
haps drink  more  than  his  English  compeer,  but  his 
thoughts  are  on  the  whole  far  purer  and  more  ele- 
vated. To  him  all  women  are  sacred  for  the  sake  of 
the  Virgin  Mother  to  whom  he  prays,  and  statistics 
show  that  crimes  against  the  weaker  sex  are  far  rarer 
in  Erin  than  in  Albion.  The  Englishman  endeavours 
to  be  accurate;  the  Irishman  cares  little  for  accuracy, 
but  prefers  to  say  rather  what  is  most  courteous,  or 
what  he  thinks  will  please.  In  a  word,  they  repre- 
sent two  different  sub-races;  their  development  runs 


268  THE  INNER  LIFE 

along  quite  different  lines,  and  only  the  wisest  and 
most  liberal  of  each  can  possibly  understand  and 
make  allowance  for  the  peculiarities  of  the  other. 

It  is  probable  that  many  causes  combine  to  pro- 
duce the  poverty  and  general  lack  of  prosperity  of 
the  Irish.  Without  raising  any  of  the  vexed  ques- 
tions about  which  party  opinions  clash,  the  occultist 
may  examine  with  interest  at  least  one  cause  which 
is  never  suspected  by  those  who  discuss  the  subject 
in  this  prosaic  twentieth  century;  and  that  is  the 
working  of  a  curse  pronounced  against  the  race  (or 
perhaps  one  should  rather  say  a  spell  laid  upon  it) 
no  less  than  two  thousand  years  ago  at  the  time  of 
the  Milesian  conquest.  Students  of  early  Irish  history 
will  remember  how  persistently  it  is  stated  that  the 
invading  Milesians  were  able  to  hold  in  thrall  the 
distinctly  superior  race  which  they  had  overcome, 
because  they  cast  upon  it  the  glamour  of  a  great  illu- 
sion. This  legend  has  a  basis  of  fact.  The  priests 
of  the  Milesian  religion  were  well  acquainted  with 
certain  types  of  magic,  and  as  the  country  was  con- 
quered they  occupied  it  with  strongly  magnetised 
centres.  They  established  one  of  these  every  few 
miles,  until  they  had  a  net-work  of  them  covering  the 
whole  southern  and  western  part  of  the  land,  and 
even  now,  after  the  lapse  of  two  thousand  years,  a 
strong  influence  radiates  from  them. 

Great  crowds  of  nature-spirits  of  a  certain  type 
are  still  irresistibly  attracted  to  these  centres,  gam- 
bol round  them  and  are  permeated  by  their  influence, 
and  unconsciously  become  its  ministers,  and  spread 
it  all  over  the  country  wherever  they  go. 

The  spell  which  the  Milesian  priests  laid  upon  the 
people  was  two-fold — the  curses  of  disunion  and 
lethargy — that  they  should  never  be  able  effectively 


STRAY  NOTES  ON  RACES:  SPANISH  269 

to  combine  together,  but  always  quarrel  among  them- 
selves, and  that  they  should  apathetically  submit  to 
the  domination  of  whoever  wielded  or  inherited  the 
magnetic  power.  If  any  English  ruler  had  ever 
known  enough  of  magic  to  understand  and  utilise  this 
heritage  of  the  Milesian  priests,  the  history  of  Ire- 
land might  have  been  different.  As  the  Anglo-Saxon 
is  usually  blankly  ignorant  and  blatantly  incredu- 
lous with  regard  to  all  that  side  of  nature,  a  very 
curious  thing  has  happened.  Consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously the  Roman  Church  has  come  into  that  herit- 
age, and  profits  by  what  still  remains  of  the  power 
of  that  ancient  spell,  and  her  rule  is  unquestioned 
through  all  the  districts  where  long  ago  those  priests 
of  an  older  faith  established  their  magnetic  centres. 


The  Spanish  Race 

The  whole  question  of  racial  Karma  is  a  difficult 
one,  and  I  do  not  think  that  we  have  as  yet  sufficient 
information  at  our  command  to  enable  us  to  speak 
definitely  upon  the  subject.  This  much  is  certain — 
that  whenever  we  find  markedly  unusual  conditions 
surrounding  a  race,  we  may  conclude  that  the  Manu 
in  charge  of  that  portion  of  evolution  has  in  hand  a 
number  of  egos  who  need  just  those  conditions  for 
their  progress.  The  law  of  cause  and  effect  must 
obviously  govern  national  as  well  as  individual  affairs, 
though  its  action  is  complicated  by  the  fact  that  the 
egos  who  form  the  race  when  the  effect  arrives  are 
usually  not  those  who  were  there  when  the  cause  was 
set  in  motion. 

For  example,  it  may  be  not  unreasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  the  fact  that  Spain  has  somewhat  ignomini- 
ously  lost  the  whole  of  South  America  and  Mexico, 


270  THE  INNER  LIFE 

has  a  definite  karmic  relation  to  the  awful  cruelty 
and  rapacity  shown  in  her  conquest  of  those  countries ; 
yet  we  imagine  that  the  Spaniards  who  suffered  loss 
when  those  countries  freed  themselves  can  hardly  in 
all  cases  have  been  reincarnations  of  those  who 
wrought  such  appalling  havoc  under  Cortes  and 
Pizarro.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  probable  that 
some  of  them  may  have  been,  for  we  know  that  people 
of  the  lower  classes  return  very  much  sooner  than 
those  of  the  first  class,  and  usually  have  to  incarnate 
several  times  in  the  same  branch-race  before  they 
have  learnt  all  its  lessons. 


The  Jewish  Race 

The  peculiar  conditions  of  the  Jewish  race  exist 
primarily  because  at  this  particular  stage  the  Manu 
needs  them  for  the  proper  training  of  some  of  the 
egos  under  his  care.  We  can  only  guess  at  the  racial 
karma  which  made  those  conditions  possible.  Per- 
haps the  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
the  Jewish  race  is  descended  from  those  Atlantean 
Semites  who  were  drawn  away  into  Arabia,  apart 
from  their  fellows,  by  the  Manu  of  the  Fifth  root- 
race  when  he  was  making  his  first  segregation.  That 
first  attempt  was  not  wholly  successful,  and  a  second 
segregation  took  place  into  the  Gobi  district,  from 
which  in  due  time  was  produced  the  first  sub-race  of 
the  new  root-race.  When  a  second  sub-race  was 
needed,  the  Manu  sent  emissaries  to  the  descendants 
of  those  who  had  been  left  behind  in  Arabia,  hoping 
to  mingle  with  theirs  the  blood  of  the  new  root-race; 
but  they  were  so  strongly  impressed  with  the  idea 
(which  he  himself  had  originally  implanted  in  them) 


STRAY  NOTES  ON  RACES:  JEWS  271 

that  they  were  a  chosen  race,  set  apart  from  the  world 
and  forbidden  to  intermarry  with  others,  that  in  the 
name  of  his  own  teaching  they  now  rejected  his  over- 
tures, and  he  had  to  seek  elsewhere  for  what  he 
wanted. 

The  particular  sub-race  from  which  the  Jewish  na- 
tion is  directly  descended  had  moved  across  from 
Arabia  to  the  Somali  Coast,  in  order  to  avoid  con- 
quest by  those  who  followed  the  new  teaching  of  the 
Manu.  They  then  split  off  even  from  that  dissenting 
band,  and  made  their  way  along  the  shores  of  the 
Gulf  of  Aden  and  the  Red  Sea,  until  they  entered 
upon  the  territory  of  Egypt.  The  Pharaoh  of  the 
time  received  them  hospitably,  and  assigned  them  a 
tract  of  land  on  which  to  dwell,  and  they  settled  down 
there  for  some  centuries;  but  as  a  later  Pharaoh 
sought  to  levy  from  them  some  impost  to  which  they 
objected,  and  also  to  force  them  to  perform  for  him 
certain  unpaid  labour,  as  his  other  subjects  did,  they 
protested  against  his  claims,  and  continued  their  mi- 
gration by  crossing  the  Sinaitic  desert  and  settling 
themselves  in  southern  Syria,  dispossessing,  after 
much  fighting,  other  robber  tribes  of  much  the  same 
blood  as  themselves. 

The  karma  of  that  rejection  has  left  them  ever 
since  a  race  apart,  the  same  egos  to  a  large  extent 
incarnating  again  and  again  in  that  line  instead  of 
passing  from  race  to  race  in  the  usual  way.  Whether 
some  blind  perception  of  this  difference  may  help  to 
account  for  the  treatment  they  have  received  at  the 
hands  of  other  races  I  cannot  definitely  say,  but  it 
may  also  be  partially  due  to  the  fact  that  because  of 
the  tradition  of  that  original  selection  by  the  Manu 
they  have  always  had  a  feeling  somewhat  similar  to 
that  of  the  Brahmans — that  they  are  superior  to  all 


272  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  rest  of  the  world;  and  the  rest  of  the  world  has 
not  always  appreciated  the  attitude  which  they  adopted 
in  consequence  of  that  belief. 

They  were  originally  a  nomad  tribe  like  the  Bedouin 
Arabs,  and  lived  largely  by  robbery,  their  deity  be- 
ing confessedly  but  a  private  tribal  god  who  fought 
against  the  gods  of  other  nations  and  was  perpetually 
vaunting  himself  as  superior  to  them,  although  it  will 
be  remembered  that  in  one  case  he  was  not  able  to 
overcome  certain  other  races  "because  they  had 
chariots  of  iron"  (Judges,  i.  19).  Just  like  all  other 
elemental  tribal  deities,  he  required  constant  sacri- 
fices of  blood,  and  in  order  that  he  might  receive 
plenty  of  these  he  was  always  exceedingly  jealous  lest 
any  of  his  followers  should  desert  him,  and  make 
their  offerings  to  other  deities.  The  requiring  of 
blood-sacrifices  is  an  invariable  criterion  as  to  the 
status  of  a  deity;  no  entity  in  the  least  deserving  of 
respect  or  worship  ever  made  such  an  abominable  de- 
mand. It  will  be  found  that  he  often  suggested  mean 
and  dishonourable  plans — which  is  quite  a  common 
thing  for  a  tribal  deity  to  do,  but  would  of  course 
be  utterly  impossible  for  any  higher  entity. 

The  carrying  away  into  captivity  in  Babylon  of  a 
number  of  these  turbulent  people  was  quite  the  best 
thing  that  could  happen  to  them.  They  then  for  the 
first  time  came  into  contact  with  a  highly  civilised 
race,  and  for  the  first  time  heard  of  a  supreme  God 
of  whom  everything  was  part.  Then  they  character- 
istically tried  to  identify  their  own  tribal  deity  with 
this  Supreme  Being,  and  so  caused  much  confusion. 
When  they  returned  from  this  captivity  they  rewrote 
their  scriptures  from  the  memory  of  the  older  men, 
and  then  they  put  into  them  a  certain  admixture  of 
the  higher  ideas  about  a  supreme  deity. 


STRAY  NOTES  ON  RACES:  ATLANTEANS         273 

The  Founder  of  Christianity  took  possession  of  a 
Jewish  body;  all  the  earlier  teachers  of  the  religion 
were  of  the  same  race,  and  so,  unfortunately,  they 
brought  over  into  Christianity  this  mixed  conception 
of  a  god  who  is  full  of  irreconcilable  characteristics, 
being  at  the  same  time  jealous,  cruel  and  revengeful, 
and  yet  omniscient,  omnipresent  and  compassionate. 
Even  at  the  present  day  the  Christian  church  still 
reads  in  its  highest  service  the  ridiculous  old  Jewish 
commandments,  with  which  is  incorporated  the 
statement  of  the  jealousy  of  the  deity,  while  in  an- 
other part  of  the  very  same  service  she  acclaims  him 
as  "God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  very  God  of  very 
God."  If  the  Christians  could  only  have  left  these 
primitive  Jewish  conceptions  alone,  and  taken  with 
reference  to  God  the  teachings  of  their  Founder,  who 
spoke  of  Him  always  as  the  Father  in  heaven,  many 
of  the  troubles  of  the  Church  would  have  been  avoided. 


The  Atlanteans 

The  Atlanteans  had  as  a  race  no  sense  of  the  ab- 
stract, and  were  unable  to  generalise;  for  example, 
they  had  no  multiplication  table;  arithmetic  was  to 
them  a  system  of  magic,  and  a  child  had  to  learn  elabo- 
rate rules  without  ever  knowing  the  reason  for  them. 
For  example,  he  was  taught  that  if  8  came  beneath 
8  in  the  particular  form  of  magic  which  we  now  call 
addition,  the  figure  6  must  be  noted  as  the  result,  and 
the  next  figure  to  the  left-hand  side  in  the  result  must 
be  increased  by  1.  If  however  the  particular  magic 
happened  to  be  subtraction,  a  cipher  was  the  result ;  if 
it  was  division  the  figure  1  appeared ;  if  it  was  multi- 
plication the  figure  4  was  the  result,  and  the  next 


274  THE  INNER  LIFE 

figure  to  the  left  must  be  altered  by  6.  But  he  never 
knew  that  8  plus  8  equals  16,  or  that  8  times  8  equals 
64 !  A  similar  elaborate  set  of  rules  had  to  be  memor- 
ized for  every  conceivable  position  of  all  the  figures  up 
to  10.  These  four  sets  or  types  of  mathematical  magic 
had  to  be  learnt  just  as  though  they  were  four  conjuga- 
tions of  a  verb.  Most  of  their  calculations,  however, 
were  made  by  means  of  machinery — a  kind  of  abacus  or 
framework  something  like  that  now  used  by  the 
Chinese  and  Japanese,  by  means  of  which  it  is  even 
now  possible  to  make  quite  elaborate  calculations — as, 
for  example,  to  take  the  square  root  of  any  given 
number. 

The  Atlanteans  were  clever  at  amassing  facts,  and 
had  prodigious  memories;  also  they  invented  a  good 
deal  of  quite  complicated  machinery,  though  most  of  it 
would  seem  to  us  now  quite  clumsy  in  its  action.  We 
see  another  curious  trace  of  their  limitations  in  the 
religion  which  the  Egyptians  inherited  from  them. 
They  had  observed  and  noted  most  of  the  types  of  ele- 
mental essence  and  nature-spirits,  and  they  had  named 
them  all,  and  invented  special  forms  of  spells  for  each, 
by  which  it  could  be  controlled;  and  they  went  on 
elaborately  learning  all  these,  with  the  feeling  that  if 
any  but  the  right  spell  was  applied  to  a  particular  ele- 
mental, he  would  probably  prove  destructive.  Yet 
they  never  realised  that  the  force  behind  the  spells  was 
in  every  case  the  human  will,  and  that  a  determined 
exertion  of  that,  without  any  spell  at  all,  would  have 
been  equally  effective  in  all  these  different  places. 
The  Book  of  the  Dead  contains  great  numbers  of 
these,  and  only  that  portion  of  it  which  it  was  thought 
would  be  needed  by  each  dead  person  was  placed  along 
with  him  in  his  tomb. 

The  Turanian  sub-race  of  the  Atlanteans  made  a 


MARS  AND  ITS  INHABITANTS  275 

aeries  of  experiments  in  what  is  now  called  democracy, 
and  carried  it  to  even  wilder  lengths  than  its  most 
rabid  exponents  at  the  present  day  have  yet  suggested. 
The  results  were  so  utterly  intolerable  that  the  whole 
race  broke  up  into  anarchy  and  chaos ;  and  China  even 
now  bears  the  impress  of  the  violent  reaction  in  the 
direction  of  aristocratic  government  which  followed. 
The  Turanians  had  their  animal  passions  very  strongly 
developed,  and  were  in  many  ways  not  what  we  should 
call  pleasant  people. 


Mars  and  Its  Inhabitants 

The  present  condition  of  the  planet  Mars  is  by  no 
means  unpleasant.  It  is  a  smaller  planet  than  the 
Earth  and  more  advanced  in  age.  I  do  not  mean  that 
it  is  actually  older  in  years,  for  the  whole  chain  of 
worlds  came  into  existence — not  simultaneously  indeed 
— but  within  a  certain  definite  area  of  time.  But  be- 
ing smaller  it  lives  its  life  as  a  planet  more  quickly. 
It  cooled  more  rapidly  from  the  nebulous  condition, 
and  it  has  passed  through  its  other  stages  with  corre- 
sponding celerity.  When  humanity  occupied  it  in  the 
third  round  it  was  in  much  the  same  condition  as  is  the 
Earth  at  the  present  time — that  is  to  say,  there  was 
much  more  water  than  land  on  its  surface.  Now  it  has 
passed  into  comparative  old  age,  and  the  water  surface 
is  far  less  than  that  of  the  land.  Large  areas  of  it  are 
at  present  desert,  covered  with  a  bright  orange  sand 
which  gives  the  planet  the  peculiar  hue  by  which  we 
so  readily  recognize  it.  Like  that  of  many  of  our  own 
deserts,  the  soil  is  probably  fertile  enough  if  the  great 
irrigation  system  were  extended  to  it,  as  it  no  doubt 


276  THE  INNER  LIFE 

would  have  been  if  humanity  had  remained  upon  it 
until  now. 

The  present  population,  consisting  practically  of 
members  of  the  inner  round,  is  but  a  small  one,  and 
they  find  plenty  of  room  for  themselves  to  live  with- 
out great  effort,  in  the  equatorial  lands,  where  the 
temperature  is  highest  and  there  is  no  difficulty  as  to 
water.  The  great  system  of  canals  which  has  been 
observed  by  terrestrial  astronomers  was  constructed  by 
the  second  order  of  moon-men  when  they  last  occupied 
the  planet,  and  its  general  scheme  is  to  take  advantage 
of  the  annual  melting  of  enormous  masses  of  ice  at  the 
outer  fringe  of  the  polar  snow-caps.  It  has  been  ob- 
served that  some  of  the  canals  are  double,  but  the 
double  line  is  only  occasionally  apparent;  that  is  due 
to  the  fore-thought  of  the  Martian  engineers.  The 
country  is  on  the  whole  level,  and  they  had  great  dread 
of  inundations ;  and  wherever  they  thought  that  there 
was  reason  to  fear  too  great  an  outrush  of  water  under 
exceptional  circumstances  the  second  parallel  canal 
was  constructed  to  receive  any  possible  overflow  and 
carry  it  away  safely. 

The  actual  canals  themselves  are  not  visible  to  ter- 
restrial telescopes ;  what  is  seen  is  the  belt  of  verdure 
which  appears  in  a  tract  of  country  on  each  side  of  the 
canal  only  at  the  time  when  the  water  pours  in.  Just 
as  Egypt  exists  only  because  of  the  Nile,  so  do  large 
districts  on  Mars  exist  only  because  of  these  canals. 
From  each  side  of  them  radiate  at  intervals  water- 
ways, which  run  some  miles  into  the  surrounding 
country  and  are  then  subdivided  into  thousands  of  tiny 
streamlets,  so  that  a  strip  of  country  a  hundred  miles 
in  width  is  thoroughly  irrigated.  In  this  area  are 
forests  and  cultivated  fields,  and  vegetation  of  all 
sorts  starts  forth  in  the  greatest  profusion,  making 


MARS  AND  ITS  INHABITANTS  277 

upon  the  surface  of  the  planet  a  dark  belt  which  is  visi- 
ble to  us  even  forty  million  miles  away  when  the  planet 
is  at  its  nearest  and  favourably  situated. 

Mars  is  much  farther  from  the  centre  of  the  system 
than  we  are,  and  consequently  the  sun  appears  to  its 
inhabitants  scarcely  more  than  half  the  size  that  it 
does  to  us.  Nevertheless  the  climate  of  the  inhabited 
portions  of  the  planet  is  very  good,  the  temperature 
during  the  day  at  the  equator  being  usually  about  70° 
Fahrenheit,  though  there  are  not  many  nights  in  the 
year  when  there  is  not  a  touch  of  frost.  Clouds  are  al- 
most unknown,  the  sky  being  for  most  of  the  year  en- 
tirely clear.  The  country  is  therefore  to  a  large  ex- 
tent free  from  the  unpleasantness  of  rain  or  snow. 
The  Martian  day  is  a  few  minutes  longer  than  our  own 
and  their  year  is  nearly  twice  as  long  as  ours,  and  the 
variation  of  the  seasons  in  the  inhabited  part  is  but 
slight. 

In  physical  appearance  the  Martians  are  not  unlike 
ourselves,  except  that  they  are  considerably  smaller. 
The  tallest  men  are  not  above  five  feet  in  height  and 
the  majority  are  two  or  three  inches  shorter.  Accord- 
ing to  our  ideas  they  are  somewhat  broad  in  proportion, 
having  very  great  chest  capacity — a  fact  which  may 
possibly  be  due  to  the  rarity  of  the  air  and  the  conse- 
quent necessity  of  deep  breathing  in  order  fully  to 
oxygenate  the  blood.  The  whole  civilised  population  of 
Mars  is  one  race,  and  there  is  practically  no  difference 
in  features  or  complexion,  except  that,  just  as  among 
ourselves,  there  are  blondes  and  brunettes,  some  of  the 
people  having  a  faintly  yellowish  skin  and  black  hair, 
while  the  majority  have  yellow  hair  and  blue  or  violet 
eyes — somewhat  Norwegian  in  appearance-  They 
dress  mostly  in  brilliant  colours,  and  both  sexes  wear 
an  almost  shapeless  garment  of  some  very  soft  ma-. 


278  THE  INNER  LIVE 

terial  which  falls  straight  from  the  shoulders  down  to 
the  feet.  Generally  the  feet  are  bare,  though  they 
sometimes  use  a  sort  of  metal  sandal  or  slipper,  with  a 
thong  round  the  ankle. 

They  are  very  fond  of  flowers,  of  which  there  is  a 
great  variety,  and  their  towns  are  built  on  the  general 
plan  of  the  garden-city,  the  houses  usually  being  one- 
storeyed  only,  but  built  round  inner  courtyards  and 
straggling  over  a  great  deal  of  ground.  These  houses 
look  exteriorly  as  though  built  of  coloured  glass,  and 
indeed  the  material  which  is  used  is  transparent,  but 
it  is  somehow  so  fluted  that  while  the  persons  inside 
enjoy  an  almost  unimpeded  view  of  their  gardens,  no 
one  from  outside  can  see  what  is  going  on  in  the 
house. 

The  houses  are  not  built  up  in  blocks,  but  the  ma- 
terial is  melted  and  poured  into  moulds;  if  a  house 
is  to  be  built,  a  sort  of  double  mould  of  it  is  first  made 
in  metal  faced  with  cement,  and  then  the  curious  glass- 
like substance  is  melted  and  poured  into  this  mould, 
and  when  it  is  cold  and  hardened  the  moulds  are  taken 
away,  and  the  house  is  finished  except  for  a  certain 
amount  of  polishing  of  the  surface.  The  doors  are 
not  exactly  like  ours,  since  they  have  no  hinges  or 
bolts,  and  are  opened  and  shut  by  treading  on  certain 
spots  in  the  ground,  either  without  or  within.  They 
do  not  swing  on  hinges,  but  run  back  into  the  wall  on 
each  side.  All  these  doors  and  all  furniture  and  fittings 
are  of  metal.    Wood  seems  to  be  used  scarcely  at  all. 

There  is  only  one  language  in  use  over  the  wnole 
planet,  except  for  the  few  savage  tribes,  and  this 
language,  like  everything  in  their  world,  has  not  grown 
up  as  ours  have  done,  but  has  been  constructed  in  order 
to  save  time  and  trouble.  It  has  been  simplified  to 
the  last  possible  extent,  and  it  has  no  irregularities 


MARS  AND   ITS   INHABITANTS  279 

of  any  sort.  They  have  two  methods  of  recording 
their  thoughts.  One  is  to  speak  into  a  small  box  with 
a  mouthpiece  on  one  side  of  it,  something  like  that 
of  a  telephone.  Each  word  so  spoken  is  by  the 
mechanism  expressed  as  a  kind  of  complicated  sign 
upon  a  little  plate  of  metal,  and  when  the  message 
has  been  spoken  the  plate  falls  out  and  is  found  to  be 
marked  in  crimson  characters,  which  can  easily  be 
read  by  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  scheme.  The 
other  plan  is  actually  to  write  by  hand,  but  that  is 
an  enormously  more  difficult  acquirement,  for  the 
scri.pt  is  a  very  complicated  kind  of  shorthand  which 
cam  be  written  as  rapidly  as  one  can  speak.  It  is  in 
th:is  latter  script  that  all  their  books  are  printed,  and 
these  latter  are  usually  in  the  shape  of  rolls  made  of 
ve:ry  thin  flexible  metal.  The  engraving  of  them  is 
exceedingly  minute,  and  it  is  customary  to  read  it 
through  a  magnifier,  which  is  fixed  conveniently  upon 
a  stand.  In  the  stand  there  is  machinery  which  un- 
rolls the  scroll  before  the  magnifier  at  any  desired 
rate,  so  that  one  reads  without  needing  to  touch  the 
book  at  all. 

On  every  hand  one  sees  signs  of  a  very  old  civilisa- 
tion, for  the  inhabitants  have  preserved  the  tradition 
of  all  that  was  known  when  the  great  life-wave  of 
humanity  occupied  the  planet,  and  have  since  added 
to  it  many  other  discoveries.  Electricity  seems  to  be 
practically  the  sole  motive  power,  and  all  sorts  of 
labour-saving  machines  are  universally  employed. 

The  people  are  on  the  whole  distinctly  indolent,  es- 
pecially after  they  have  passed  their  first  youth.  But 
the  comparatively  small  size  of  the  population  en- 
ables them  to  live  very  easily.  They  have  trained 
various  kinds  of  domestic  animals  to  a  far  higher  con- 
dition of  intelligent  co-operation  than  has  yet  been 


280  THE  INNER  LIFE 

achieved  upon  earth,  so  that  a  great  deal  of  servant's 
and  gardener's  work  is  done  by  these  creatures  with 
comparatively  little  direction. 

One  autocratic  ruler  governs  the  whole  planet,  but 
the  monarchy  is  not  hereditary.  Polygamy  is  prac- 
tised, but  it  is  the  custom  to  hand  over  all  children 
to  the  State  at  a  very  early  age  to  be  reared  and  edu- 
cated, so  that  among  the  vast  majority  of  the  people 
there  is  no  family  tradition  whatever,  and  no  one 
knows  who  are  his  father  and  mother.  There  is  no 
law  compelling  this,  but  it  is  considered  so  decidedly 
the  right  thing  to  do  and  the  best  for  the  children 
that  the  few  families  who  choose  to  live  somewhat 
more  as  we  do,  and  to  educate  their  children  at  home, 
are  always  regarded  as  selfishly  injuring  their  pros- 
pects for  the  sake  of  what  is  considered  mere  animal 
affection. 

The  state  is  thus  in  the  position  of  universal 
guardian  and  schoolmaster,  and  the  school  authori- 
ties of  each  district  are  instructed  carefully  to  sorJ-, 
the  children  according  to  the  aptitudes  which  they 
display,  and  their  line  of  life  is  decided  for  them  in 
this  manner — a  very  wide  range  of  choice,  however, 
being  allowed  the  individual  child  as  he  approaches 
years  of  discretion.  But  children  who  show  at  the 
same  time  great  intellect  and  wide  general  capacity 
are  set  apart  from  all  the  rest,  and  trained  with  a 
view  of  becoming  members  of  the  ruling  class. 

The  King  has  under  him  what  may  be  called  vice- 
roys of  large  districts,  and  they  in  turn  have  under 
them  governors  of  smaller  districts,  and  so  on  down 
to  what  would  be  equivalent  here  to  the  head-man  of 
a  village.  All  these  officials  are  chosen  by  the  King 
from  this  group  of  specially  educated  children,  and 
when  the  time  of  his  own  death  is  considered  to  be 


MARS  AND  ITS  INHABITANTS  281 

approaching  it  is  from  among  them  or  from  among 
the  already  appointed  officials  that  he  chooses  his 
successor. 

They  have  brought  their  scientific  medical  studies 
to  such  perfection  that  disease  has  been  eliminated, 
and  even  the  ordinary  signs  of  the  approach  of  old 
age  have  been  to  a  large  extent  got  rid  of.  Practi- 
cally no  one  appears  old,  and  it  would  seem  that  they 
hardly  feel  old ;  but,  after  a  life  somewhat  longer  than 
our  own  the  desire  to  live  gradually  fades  away,  and 
the  man  dies.  It  is  quite  customary  for  a  man  who 
is  losing  interest  and  feels  that  death  is  approaching 
(this  corresponds  to  what  we  should  call  a  cen- 
tenarian) to  apply  to  a  certain  scientific  department 
which  corresponds  to  what  we  might  call  a  school  of 
surgery,  and  ask  to  be  put  painlessly  to  death — a 
request  which  is  always  granted. 

All  these  rulers  are  autocratic,  each  within  his  own 
sphere,  but  appeal  to  a  higher  official  is  always  possi- 
ble, though  the  right  is  not  frequently  exercised,  be- 
cause the  people  usually  prefer  to  acquiesce  in  any 
fairly  reasonable  decision  rather  than  to  take  the 
trouble  involved  in  an  appeal.  The  rulers  on  the 
whole  seem  to  perform  their  duties  fairly  well,  but 
again  one  gets  the  impression  that  they  do  so  not 
so  much  from  any  pre-eminent  sense  of  right  or 
justice  as  to  avoid  the  trouble  that  would  certainly 
ensue  from  a  flagrantly  unjust  decision. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things  about  this  peo- 
ple is  that  they  have  absolutely  no  religion.  There 
are  no  churches,  no  temples,  no  places  of  worship  of 
any  sort  whatever,  no  priest,  no  ecclesiastical  power. 
The  accepted  belief  of  the  people  is  what  we  should 
call  scientific  materialism.  Nothing  is  true  but  what 
can  be  scientifically  demonstrated,  and  to  believe  any- 


282  THE  INNER  LIFE 

thing  which  cannot  be  so  demonstrated  is  regarded 
as  not  only  the  height  of  folly,  but  even  as  a  posi- 
tive crime,  because  it  is  considered  a  danger  to  the 
public  peace. 

Martian  history  in  the  remote  past  was  not  unlike 
our  own,  and  there  are  stories  of  religious  persecu- 
tions, and  of  peoples  whose  beliefs  were  of  so  uncom- 
fortable a  nature  that  they  forced  them  not  only  into 
feverish  energy  for  themselves,  but  also  into  per- 
petual interference  with  the  liberty  of  thought  of 
other  people.  Martian  public  opinion  is  quite  deter- 
mined that  there  shall  never  again  be  any  oppor- 
tunity for  the  introduction  of  disturbing  factors  of 
that  sort,  and  that  physical  science  and  the  lower 
reason  shall  reign  supreme;  and  though  there,  as 
here,  events  have  occurred  which  material  science 
cannot  explain,  people  find  it  best  to  say  nothing 
about  them. 

Nevertheless  on  Mars,  as  in  other  places,  there  are 
a  certain  number  of  people  who  know  better  than 
this,  and  many  centuries  ago  a  few  of  these  joined 
themselves  together  into  a  secret  brotherhood  to  meet 
and  discuss  such  matters.  Very  gradually  and  with 
infinite  precaution,  they  took  other  recruits  into  this 
charmed  circle,  and  so  came  into  existence,  in  this 
most  materialistic  of  worlds,  a  secret  society  which 
not  only  believed  in  superphysical  worlds  but  knew 
practically  of  their  existence,  for  its  members  took 
up  the  direct  study  of  mesmerism  and  spiritualism, 
and  many  of  them  developed  a  good  deal  of  power. 

At  the  present  time  the  secret  society  is  very 
widely  spread,  and  the  head  of  it  at  this  moment  is 
a  pupil  of  one  of  our  Masters.  Even  now  after  all 
these  centuries  its  existence  is  not  officially  known 
to  the  authorities,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  have 


MARS  AND  ITS  INHABITANTS  283 

something  more  than  a  suspicion  of  it,  and  they  have 
learnt  to  fear  it.  None  of  its  members  are  actually 
identified  as  such,  but  many  are  strongly  suspected, 
and  it  seems  to  have  been  observed  that  when  any 
of  these  strongly  suspected  people  have  in  the  past 
been  injured  or  unjustly  put  to  death,  the  persons 
who  were  concerned  in  bringing  about  that  result  have 
invariably  died  prematurely  and  mysteriously,  though 
never  in  any  case  has  their  death  been  traceable  to 
any  physical-plane  action  on  the  part  of  the  sus- 
pected member.  Consequently,  although  such  a  be- 
lief is  no  doubt  somewhat  of  an  infringement  of  the 
principles  of  pure  reason  by  which  everything  is  sup- 
posed to  be  governed,  it  has  come  to  be  generally 
understood  that  it  is  safest  not  to  pry  too  closely  into 
the  beliefs  of  people  who  seem  to  differ  in  some  degree 
from  the  majority,  so  long  as  they  do  not  openly  make 
profession  of  anything  which  would  be  considered 
subversive  of  the  good  morals  of  materialism. 

Driven  far  away  from  the  pleasant  equatorial 
regions  into  inhospitable  lands  and  impenetrable 
forests,  there  still  exist  some  remnants  of  the  savage 
tribes  who  are  descended  from  those  left  behind  when 
the  great  life-wave  left  Mars  for  the  earth.  These  are 
primitive  savages  at  a  lower  stage  than  any  now 
living  on  the  exterior  of  our  earth,  though  bearing 
some  resemblance  to  one  of  our  interior  evolutions. 

Some  at  least  of  the  members  of  the  secret  society 
have  learnt  how  to  cross  without  great  difficulty  the 
space  which  separates  us  from  Mars,  and  have  there- 
fore at  various  times  tried  to  manifest  themselves 
through  mediums  at  spiritualistic  seances,  or  have 
been  able,  by  the  methods  which  they  have  learnt,  to 
impress  their  ideas  upon  poets  and  novelists. 

The  information  which  I  have  given  above  is  based 


284  THE  INNER  LIFE 

upon  observation  and  inquiry  during  various  visits 
to  the  planet;  yet  nearly  all  of  it  might  be  found  in 
the  works  of  various  writers  within  the  last  thirty  or 
forty  years,  and  in  all  such  cases  it  has  been  com- 
municated or  impressed  by  someone  from  Mars,  al- 
though the  very  fact  of  such  impression  was  (at 
least  in  some  cases)  quite  unknown  to  the  physical 
writer. 

Of  our  future  home,  Mercury,  we  know  much  less 
than  of  Mars,  for  visits  to  it  have  been  hurried  and 
infrequent.  Many  people  would  think  it  incredible 
that  life  such  as  ours  could  exist  on  Mercury,  with  a 
sun  that  appears  at  least  seven  times  as  large  as  it 
does  here.  The  heat,  however,  is  not  at  all  so  intense 
as  would  be  supposed.  I  am  informed  that  this  is  due 
to  the  presence  of  a  layer  of  gas  on  the  outskirts  of 
the  Mercurian  atmosphere,  which  prevents  most  of 
the  heat  from  penetrating.  We  are  told  also  that 
the  most  destructive  of  all  possible  storms  on  Mer- 
cury is  one  which  even  for  a  moment  disturbs  the 
stability  of  this  gaseous  envelope.  When  that  hap- 
pens a  kind  of  a  whirl-pool  is  set  up  in  it,  and  for 
a  moment  a  shaft  of  direct  sunlight  comes  from  the 
sun  through  its  vortex.  Such  a  shaft  instantly  de- 
stroys whatever  life  comes  in  its  way,  and  burns  up 
in  a  moment  everything  combustible.  Fortunately 
such  storms  are  rare.  The  inhabitants  whom  I  have 
seen  there  are  much  like  ourselves,  though  again 
somewhat  smaller. 

The  influence  of  gravity  both  on  Mars  and  Mer- 
cury is  less  than  half  what  it  is  on  earth,  but  while 
on  Mars  I  did  not  notice  any  particular  way  in  which 
advantage  had  been  taken  of  this.  I  observed  on 
Mercury  that  the  doors  of  the  houses  were  quite  a 
considerable  height  from  the  ground,  needing  what 


MARS  AND  ITS  INHABITANTS  285 

for  us  would  be  a  respectable  gymnastic  feat  to  reach 
them,  though  on  Mercury  it  is  only  a  slight  spring 
that  is  required.  All  the  inhabitants  of  that  planet 
are  from  birth  possessed  of  etheric  sight;  I  remem- 
ber that  the  fact  was  first  brought  to  my  notice  by 
observing  a  child  who  was  watching  the  movements 
of  some  crawling  creature;  and  I  saw  that  when  it 
entered  its  abode  he  was  still  able  to  follow  its  move- 
ments, even  when  it  was  deep  down  under  the 
ground. 


^e&enilj  J&edxtm 


^utcanuttum 


SEVENTH  SECTION 


Three  Laws  of  Human  Life 

HE  ordinary  ego  is  by  no  means  yet  in  a 
position  to  choose  a  body  for  himself.  The 
place  of  his  birth  is  usually  determined 
by  three  factors,  or  perhaps  it  would  be 
better  to  say  by  the  combined  action  of 
three  forces.  First  comes  the  law  of  evolution,  which 
causes  an  ego  to  be  born  under  conditions  which  will 
give  him  an  opportunity  of  developing  exactly  those 
qualities  of  which  he  stands  most  in  need.  But  the 
action  of  this  force  is  limited  by  the  second  factor, 
the  law  of  karma.  The  ego  may  not  have  deserved 
the  best  possible  opportunity,  and  so  he  has  to  put 
up  with  the  second  or  third  best.  He  may  not  even 
have  deserved  any  great  opportunity  at  all,  and  so  a 
tumultuous  life  of  small  progress  may  be  his  fate. 

A  third  factor  also  comes  into  play — the  force  of 
any  personal  ties  of  love  or  hate  that  the  ego  may 
have  previously  formed.  This  may  modify  the  action 
of  the  first  and  second  forces,  for  by  it  a  man  may 
sometimes  be  drawn  into  a  position  which  he  cannot 
be  said  to  have  deserved  in  any  other  way  than  by 
the  strong  personal  love  which  he  has  felt  for  some 
one  higher  in  evolution  than  himself. 

A  man  who  has  worked  much  beyond  the  ordi- 


290  THE  INNER  LIFE 

nary — a  man  who  has  already  entered  the  Path 
which  leads  to  adeptship — may  be  able  to  exercise  a 
certain  amount  of  choice  as  to  the  country  and 
family  of  his  birth;  but  such  an  one  will  be  the  first 
to  put  aside  entirely  any  wish  of  his  own  in  the  mat- 
ter, and  resign  himself  absolutely  into  the  hands  of 
the  great  eternal  law,  confident  that  whatever  it 
brings  to  him  must  be  far  better  for  him  than  any 
selection  of  his  own. 

Parents  cannot  choose  the  soul  who  shall  inhabit 
the  body  to  which  they  give  birth,  but  by  so  living 
as  to  offer  an  unusually  good  opportunity  for  the 
progress  of  an  advanced  ego  they  can  make  it  ex- 
ceedingly probable  that  such  an  ego  will  come  to  them. 


The  Return  to  Birth 

The  whole  of  our  solar  system  is  a  manifestation 
of  its  Logos,  and  every  particle  in  it  is  definitely  part 
of  His  vehicles.  All  the  physical  matter  of  the  solar 
system  taken  as  a  totality  constitutes  His  physical 
body;  all  the  astral  matter  within  it  constitutes  His 
astral  body;  all  the  mental  matter,  His  mental  body, 
and  so  on.  Entirely  above  and  beyond  His  system 
He  has  a  far  wider  and  greater  existence  of  His  own, 
but  that  does  not  in  the  least  affect  the  truth  of  the 
statement  which  we  have  just  made. 

This  solar  Logos  contains  within  Himself  seven 
planetary  Logoi,  who  are  as  it  were  centres  of  force 
within  Him,  channels  through  which  His  force  pours 
out.  Yet  at  the  same  time  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
they  may  be  said  to  constitute  Him.     The  matter 


THE  RETURN  TO  BIRTH  291 

which  we  have  just  described  as  composing  His 
vehicles  also  composes  theirs,  for  there  is  no  parti- 
cle of  matter  anywhere  in  the  system  which  is  not 
part  of  one  or  other  of  them.  All  this  is  true  of 
every  plane;  but  let  us  for  a  moment  take  the  astral 
plane  as  an  example,  because  its  matter  is  fluid 
enough  to  answer  the  purposes  of  our  inquiry,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  is  near  enough  to  the  physical  to 
be  not  entirely  beyond  the  limits  of  our  physical  com- 
prehension. 

Every  particle  of  the  astral  matter  of  the  system 
is  part  of  the  astral  body  of  the  solar  LOGOS,  but  it 
is  also  part  of  the  astral  body  of  one  or  other  of  the 
seven  planetary  Logoi.  Remember  that  this  includes 
the  astral  matter  of  which  your  astral  body  and  mine 
are  composed.  We  have  no  particle  which  is  exclu- 
sively our  own.  In  every  astral  body  there  are  par- 
ticles belonging  to  each  one  of  the  seven  planetary 
Logoi,  but  the  proportions  vary  infinitely.  The 
bodies  of  those  Monads  which  originally  came  forth 
through  a  planetary  LOGOS  will  continue  all  through 
their  evolution  to  have  more  of  the  particles  of  that 
Logos  than  of  any  other,  and  in  this  way  people  may 
be  distinguished  as  primarily  belonging  to  one  or  other 
of  these  seven  great  Powers. 

In  these  seven  planetary  Logoi  certain  psychic 
changes  periodically  occur;  perhaps  they  correspond 
to  in-breathing  and  out-breathing,  or  to  the  beating 
of  the  heart  with  us  down  here  on  the  physical  plane. 

However  that  may  be,  there  seem  to  be  an  infinite 
number  of  possible  permutations  and  combinations 
of  them.  Now  since  our  astral  bodies  are  built  of 
the  very  matter  of  their  astral  bodies,  it  is  obvious 
that  no  one  of  these  planetary  Logoi  can  change 
astrally  in   any  way  without  thereby  affecting  the 


292  THE  INNER   LIFE 

astral  body  of  every  man  in  the  world,  though  of 
course  more  especially  those  in  whom  there  is  a  pre- 
ponderance of  the  matter  expressing  that  particular 
Logos;  and  if  it  be  remembered  that  we  are  taking 
the  astral  plane  merely  as  an  example,  and  that 
exactly  the  same  thing  is  true  on  all  the  other  planes, 
we  shall  then  begin  to  have  an  idea  how  important 
to  us  the  motions  of  these  planetary  Spirits  are. 

Madame  Blavatsky  writes  of  a  certain  order  of 
supernal  Beings  whom  she  calls  the  Lipika,  or  Lords 
of  Karma.  We  are  told  that  their  agents  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  karma  are  the  four  (really  seven) 
great  rulers  who  are  known  as  the  Devarajas  or  Re- 
gents of  the  Earth.  Each  one  of  them  is  at  the  head 
of  a  certain  vast  group  of  devas  and  nature-spirits, 
and  even  of  elemental  essence.  Once  more  for  pur- 
poses of  explanation  let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the 
astral  plane,  but  always  with  the  memory  at  the 
back  of  our  minds  that  the  same  thing  applies  to  all 
the  other  planes  as  well.  Astral  matter  as  a  whole 
is  specially  under  the  control  of  one  of  these  Great 
Ones,  but  the  second  sub-plane  of  every  plane  is  also 
to  a  certain  extent  under  the  direction  of  the  same 
Great  One,  because  that  sub-plane  holds  the  same  re- 
lation to  the  plane  of  which  it  is  a  part  as  the  astral 
plane  does  to  the  whole  set  of  planes.  Therefore  for 
every  sub-plane  there  are  two  influences — the  influ- 
ence of  the  ruler  of  the  plane  as  a  whole,  and  the 
sub-influence  of  the  ruler  of  the  sub-plane. 

Now  out  of  this  astral  matter,  every  particle  of 
which  belongs  to  the  garment  of  one  or  other  of  the 
seven  planetary  Logoi,  and  is  at  the  same  time  under 
the  predominating  influence  of  the  Devaraja  of  the 
astral  plane,  and  also  under  the  subordinate  influence 
of   another   Devaraja   who   indirectly   rules   its   sub- 


THE  RETURN  TO  BIRTH  293 

plane,  our  astral  bodies  have  to  be  built.  In  order 
to  help  us  to  grasp  this,  let  us  think  of  the  sub- 
planes  of  the  astral  plane  as  horizontal  divisions, 
and  of  the  types  of  matter  belonging  to  the 
seven  great  planetary  Logoi  as  perpendicular  di- 
visions crossing  these  others  at  right  angles.  (There 
are  still  further  subdivisions,  but  we  will  take  no  ac- 
count of  them  for  the  present,  in  order  that  the 
broad  idea  may  stand  out  clearly).  This  then  even 
already  gives  us  forty-nine  distinctly  marked  varie- 
ties of  astral  matter,  because  on  each  of  its  sub-planes 
we  have  matter  belonging  to  each  of  the  planetary 
Logoi. 

Even  taking  no  account  of  the  further  subdivisions, 
we  see  that  we  have  already  the  possibility  of  an  al- 
most infinite  number  of  combinations;  so  that  what- 
ever may  be  the  characteristics  of  the  ego  he  is  able 
to  find  an  adequate  expression  for  himself. 

Let  us  consider  the  case  of  an  ego  who  is  about  to 
descend  into  incarnation.  We  must  think  of  him  as 
resting  upon  the  higher  part  of  the  mental  plane  in 
his  causal  body,  and  having  no  vehicle  lower  than 
that.  Since  the  death  of  his  last  physical  body  he  has 
been  drawing  steadily  inwards,  first  into  his  astral 
and  then  into  his  mental  vehicle,  and  at  the  end  of 
the  heaven-life  he  has  cast  off  even  the  latter.  He 
then  rests  for  a  certain  period  on  his  own  plane — a 
period  which  varies,  according  to  the  stage  of  his  de- 
velopment, from  two  or  three  days  of  unconscious- 
ness in  the  case  of  an  ordinary  undeveloped  man  to 
a  long  period  of  years  of  conscious  and  glorious  life 
in  that  of  exceptionally  advanced  people.  Then  he 
begins  once  more  to  turn  his  attention  downwards 
and  outwards.  As  in  the  course  of  his  upward  move- 
ment he  has  withdrawn  his  attention  from  the  phys- 


294  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ical  and  the  astral  planes  respectively,  the  perma- 
nent atoms  have  passed  into  a  dormant  condition, 
and  have  ceased  the  vigorous  vibration  which  is  their 
usual  characteristic.  The  same  thing  happens  to  the 
mental  unit  at  the  end  of  the  heaven-life,  and  during 
his  rest  on  his  own  plane  the  ego  has  these  three  ap- 
pendages within  himself  in  a  quiescent  condition. 

When  he  turns  his  attention  once  more  to  the  men- 
tal plane,  the  mental  unit  immediately  resumes  its 
activity,  and  because  of  that  it  at  once  gathers  round 
it  such  matter  as  is  required  to  express  that  activity. 
Precisely  the  same  thing  happens  when  he  turns  his 
attention  to  the  astral  atom,  and  puts  his  will  into 
that.  It  attracts  to  itself  material  capable  of  provid- 
ing him  with  an  astral  body  of  exactly  the  same  type 
as  that  which  he  had  at  the  end  of  his  last  astral  life. 
It  is  necessary  to  have  this  fact  clearly  in  mind,  that 
what  he  thus  acquires  as  he  descends  is  not  a  ready- 
made  astral  body,  but  simply  the  material  out  of 
which  he  is  to  build  an  astral  body  in  the  course  of 
the  life  which  is  to  follow. 

In  the  case  of  lower-class  monads  with  unusually 
strong  astral  bodies,  who  reincarnate  after  a  very 
short  interval,  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  shade  or 
shell  left  over  from  the  last  astral  life  still  persists, 
and  in  that  case  it  is  likely  to  be  attracted  to  the  new 
personality.  When  that  happens  it  brings  with  it 
strongly  the  old  habits  and  modes  of  thought,  and 
sometimes  even  the  actual  memory  of  that  past  life. 

The  astral  matter  is  at  first  evenly  distributed 
throughout  the  ovoid;  it  is  only  when  the  little  physi- 
cal form  comes  into  existence  in  the  middle  of  the 
ovoid  that  the  astral  and  mental  matter  are  attracted 
to  it,  and  begin  to  mould  themselves  into  its  shape,  and 
thereafter  steadily  grow  along  with  it.     At  the  same 


THE  RETURN  TO  BIRTH  295 

time  with  this  change  in  arrangement  the  mental 
and  astral  matter  are  called  into  activity,  and  emo- 
tion and  thought  appear. 

The  aura  of  the  little  baby  is  comparatively  colour- 
less, and  it  is  only  as  the  qualities  develope  that  the 
colours  begin  to  show.  This  is  the  material  which 
is  given  to  him  out  of  which  to  fashion  his  astral 
vehicle,  the  material  which  he  has  earned  by  the  de- 
sires and  emotions  which  he  allowed  to  play  through 
him  in  his  previous  life;  but  he  is  by  no  means  com- 
pelled to  utilise  all  this  material  in  building  for  him- 
self his  new  vehicle.  If  he  is  left  entirely  to  himself, 
the  automatic  action  of  the  permanent  atom  will 
tend  to  produce  for  him,  from  the  materials  given,  an 
astral  body  precisely  similar  to  that  which  he  had  in 
the  last  life;  but  there  is  no  reason  whatever  why 
all  these  materials  should  be  used,  and  if  the  child  is 
wisely  treated  and  reasonably  guided  he  will  be  en- 
couraged to  develope  to  the  fullest  all  the  germs  of 
good  which  he  has  brought  over  from  his  previous 
life,  while  the  evil  germs  will  be  allowed  to  slumber. 
If  that  is  done  these  latter  will  gradually  atrophy  and 
drop  away  from  him,  and  the  ego  will  unfold  within 
himself  the  opposite  virtues,  and  then  he  will  be  free 
for  all  his  future  lives  from  the  evil  qualities  which 
those  germs  indicated.  Parents  and  teachers  may 
help  him  towards  this  desirable  consummation,  not  so 
much  by  any  definite  facts  which  they  teach  him  as 
by  the  encouragement  which  they  give  to  him,  by  the 
rational  and  kindly  treatment  uniformly  accorded  to 
him,  and  above  all  by  the  amount  of  affection  lavished 
upon  him. 

We  must  remember  that  while  the  higher  vehicles, 
the  mental  and  the  astral  body,  are  expressions  of  the 
man  at  his  present  stage  of  evolution  (as  far  as  that 


296  THE  INNER  LIFE 

can  be  expressed  in  the  matter  of  their  respective 
planes),  the  physical  body  is  a  vehicle  or  a  limitation 
imposed  upon  him  from  without,  and  is  therefore 
pre-eminently  the  instrument  of  karma.  The  evo- 
lutionary force  comes  into  play  in  the  selection  of  its 
materials,  but  even  in  this  it  is  at  every  turn  limited 
and  hampered  by  the  karma  of  the  past.  The  parents 
have  been  chosen  because  they  are  fitted  to  give  such 
a  body  as  will  be  suitable  for  the  development  of  the 
ego  committed  to  them,  but  with  every  pair  of  parents 
there  are  manifold  possibilities.  Each  of  them  repre- 
sents a  long  line  of  ancestry,  and  often  a  particular 
parent  may  be  chosen,  not  for  anything  that  he  is  or 
has  in  himself,  but  because  of  some  quality  which  ap- 
peared to  an  unusual  degree  in  one  of  his  ancestors 
— because  he  possesses  a  power  which  he  has  not 
used,  though  it  is  latent  in  his  physical  body  because 
it  is  physically  descended  from  that  ancestor.  In  that 
parent,  and  in  many  preceding  generations,  the 
faculty  to  express  that  quality  may  have  slept  en- 
tirely without  effect,  but  when  there  comes  into  the 
line  an  ego  which  possesses  the  quality,  the  faculty  to 
express  it  leaps  out  from  the  dormant  into  the  active 
condition,  and  we  have  a  case  of  what  is  called  re- 
version to  a  remote  type. 

In  the  formation  of  the  physical  body  there  are 
three  principal  forces  at  work:  first,  the  influence  of 
the  ego  who  is  intending  to  take  up  the  new  form; 
secondly,  the  work  of  the  building  elemental  formed 
by  the  Lords  of  Karma;  and  thirdly,  the  thought  of 
the  mother.  Now  suppose  that  an  etheric  body  is 
about  to  be  formed  for  an  ego  in  the  process  of  his 
descent  into  incarnation.  He  is  himself  an  ego  of  a 
certain  type  and  sub-type,  and  these  characteristics 
of  his  are  impressed   upon  his   physical   permanent 


THE  RETURN  TO  BIRTH  297 

atom,  and  this  in  turn  determines  which  of  the  per- 
pendicular divisions  of  etheric  matter  shall  enter  into 
the  composition  of  that  etheric  body  and  in  what  pro- 
portion they  shall  be  used.  This  quality  of  his,  how- 
ever, does  not  determine  which  of  the  horizontal  di- 
visions shall  be  employed,  and  in  what  proportion; 
that  matter  is  in  the  hands  of  the  four  Devarajas, 
and  will  be  determined  according  to  the  past  karma 
of  the  man.  Each  of  these  Devarajas  has  vast  hosts 
of  assistants  at  his  command,  so  that  no  one  of  the 
births  which  are  momentarily  taking  place  upon 
earth  is  ever  overlooked.  The  Devarajas  make  a 
thought-form,  the  building  elemental  mentioned  above, 
which  is  charged  exclusively  with  the  production  of 
the  most  suitable  physical  body  that  can  be  arranged 
for  the  man.  For  his  evolution  he  requires  a  body 
which  has  within  it  certain  possibilities ;  for  that  pur- 
pose he  may  be  born  of  a  parent  who  himself  possesses 
these  qualities,  and  therefore  can  directly  hand 
them  on,  or  he  may  be  born  of  a  parent  whose  an- 
cestors, on  one  side  or  the  other,  possessed  them,  so 
that  the  unawakened  germs  which  can  respond  to 
them  may  be  handed  on  by  that  parent  to  his  off- 
spring. 

Remember  that  this  elemental,  which  is  put  in 
charge  of  the  development  of  the  physical  body,  is 
the  joint  thought-form  of  the  four  Devarajas,  and 
that  its  primary  business  is  to  build  the  etheric 
mould  into  which  the  physical  particles  of  the  new 
baby-body  are  to  be  built.  In  building  this  new 
etheric  body  it  has  four  varieties  of  etheric  matter 
which  it  can  use  (the  four  over  which  its  creators 
respectively  preside)  and  the  type  of  the  etheric 
body  which  is  produced  depends  upon  the  proportion 
in  which  these  constituents  are  employed.     Remem- 


298  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ber  that  the  elemental  has  no  power  of  choice  with 
regard  to  the  perpendicular  subdivisions,  but  it  has 
every  freedom  with  regard  to  the  horizontal  kinds 
of  matter. 

It  is  quite  impossible  for  us  at  our  present  level  to 
understand  the  working  of  so  mighty  a  conscious- 
ness as  that  of  a  Devaraja,  so  we  can  only  chronicle 
the  fact,  without  pretending  to  explain  it,  that  the 
elemental  in  doing  its  work  appears  somehow  not  to 
be  entirely  separated  from  the  minds  which  pro- 
jected it.  In  some  way  inexplicable  to  us  it  still  re- 
mains to  some  modified  extent  within  their  con- 
sciousness, and  in  rare  cases,  where  a  developed  ego 
is  (even  at  an  early  age)  beginning  to  take  active 
possession  of  his  body,  it  would  seem  that  he  may 
come  into  direct  contact  with  them,  and  call  down 
upon  himself  by  their  consent  more  karma  than  they 
had  originally  apportioned  to  him. 

One  who  can  do  that  while  the  elemental  is  still  at 
its  work  can  also  retain  during  later  life  this  touch 
with  the  karmic  deities,  and  therefore  his  power  to 
appeal  to  them  for  further  modifications.  So  far  as 
we  have  seen,  however,  this  possible  modification  may 
be  only  in  the  direction  of  the  increase  of  the  karma 
to  be  worked  out,  not  in  that  of  its  decrease.  The 
awakening  of  consciousness,  which  enables  an  ego 
thus  to  come  into  touch  with  the  Devarajas  and  to 
co-operate  willingly  with  them  so  far  as  their  work 
with  himself  is  concerned,  may  commence  at  any 
time;  so  that  an  ego  who  was  not  in  touch  with  them 
during  the  working  of  the  elemental  which  built  his 
physical  body  may  yet,  by  stupendous  efforts  along 
the  line  of  self-development  and  usefulness,  attract 
their  attention  later  in  life  and  evoke  from  them  a 
definite  response. 


THE  RETURN  TO  BIRTH  299 

The  germ  which  is  to  expand  into  the  physical 
body  of  the  man  has  within  itself  two  constituents, 
with  two  sets  of  potentialities.  (The  student  must 
be  careful  not  to  confound  this  physical  germ  which 
comes  from  the  parents  with  the  physical  permanent 
atom  which  the  ego  brings  with  him).  It  is  essen- 
tially an  ovum,  which  has  within  itself  ail  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  maternal  ancestry,  but  it  has  been 
pierced  by  a  spermatozoon  which  brings  with  it  all 
the  potentialities  of  the  paternal  ancestry. 

These  two  sets  of  possibilities  are  wide,  as  may 
easily  be  seen  if  we  reflect  upon  the  number  of  an- 
cestors which  any  one  of  us  must  have  had,  say  a 
thousand  years  ago.  But  wide  though  they  be,  they 
have  their  limitations.  For  example,  take  the  case 
of  one  of  our  gardeners  here  at  Adyar — a  man  of 
what  is  called  the  coolie  or  unskilled  labourer  class. 
Going  back  a  thousand  years  that  man's  ancestors 
must  have  been  counted  by  millions;  yet  all  those 
millions  must  have  been  of  the  coolie  class.  They 
must  have  included  all  possible  varieties  of  coolie, 
good  and  bad,  clever  and  stupid,  kind  and  cruel;  but 
they  were  all  coolies,  and  therefore  all  had  the  limi- 
tations of  the  brain  and  the  qualities  belonging  to 
that  class. 

From  among  these  potentialities  the  elemental  has 
to  make  its  selection.  For  that  purpose  it  has  two 
questions  to  consider,  quality  and  form.  Of  these  the 
former  is  infinitely  more  important.  The  latter  is 
concerned  chiefly  with  the  matter  of  the  lower  sub- 
planes.  But  the  quality  of  the  etheric  matter  selected 
for  the  building  of  that  higher  part  of  the  physical 
body  will  to  a  large  extent  determine  the  capacities 
of  that  body  during  that  incarnation — whether  it  will 
be  naturally  clever  or  stupid,  placid  or  irritable,  ener- 
getic or  lethargic,  sensitive  or  unresponsive. 


300  THE  INNER  LIFE 

So  the  first  work  of  the  thought-form  or  elemen- 
tal of  the  Devarajas  is  to  select  which  of  these  possi- 
bilities shall  be  brought  into  prominence  in  the  build- 
ing of  the  new  physical  body — especially  in  the  build- 
ing of  its  brain.  The  mere  outer  form  is  a  minor 
consideration,  though  also  an  important  one,  but  this 
too  is  part  of  the  work  of  the  elemental.  If  the  man 
has  deserved  the  limitation  of  deformity  in  his  physi- 
cal body  or  of  weakness  in  some  of  its  organs — the 
heart,  the  lungs,  the  stomach — it  is  through  the  ele- 
mental that  his  karma  is  adjusted.  Its  instructions 
(if  we  may  use  such  a  term)  are  to  build  a  body  of 
a  certain  kind  and  degree  of  strength,  and  with  cer- 
tain characteristics  brought  into  prominence.  But 
these  are  not  instructions  given  to  it  to  carry  in  its 
mind,  for  it  has  no  mind;  they  are  rather  itself,  its 
very  life,  for  when  those  instructions  have  finally 
been  carried  out  it  ceases  to  be,  because  the  work 
for  which  it  was  created  is  done. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  to  students  of  embryology 
that  in  their  earlier  stages  the  germs  of  a  fish,  a  dog 
and  a  man  are  practically  indistinguishable.  They 
all  grow  in  the  same  manner,  but  the  difference  be- 
tween them  is  that  one  of  them  stops  at  one  stage 
of  that  growth,  while  the  others  go  on  further.  The 
reason  for  this  obvious  fact  is  not  clear  to  those  who 
adopt  the  materialistic  view.  They  have  to  postulate 
that  matter  coming  from  a  particular  source,  al- 
though in  every  way  identical  in  appearance  with 
matter  coming  from  a  totally  different  source,  never- 
theless possesses  within  it  some  inherent  qualities 
which  compel  it  to  reproduce  the  form  from  which  it 
came. 

The  compulsory  force  is  not  an  inherent  quality  in 
the  matter,  which  is  in  truth  identical  and  composed 


THE  RETURN  TO  BIRTH  301 

of  precisely  the  same  chemical  elements,  but  it  is  the 
divine  life  pressing  forward  to  ensoul  this  matter, 
and  moulding  it  for  itself  into  the  form  which  is 
suited  for  it  at  that  particular  stage  of  its  develop- 
ment. As  soon  as  the  entity  becomes  individualised, 
and  therefore  commences  to  make  individual  karma, 
this  additional  factor  of  the  moulding  thought-form 
of  the  karmic  deities  comes  into  play,  and  takes  pos- 
session of  the  growing  germ,  even  before  its  own 
ego  can  grasp  it. 

The  form  and  color  of  this  elemental  vary  in  differ- 
ent cases.  At  first  it  accurately  expresses  in  shape 
and  size  the  baby  body  which  it  has  to  build,  as  that 
body  should  look  (as  far  as  the  elemental's  work  is 
concerned)  at  the  time  of  its  birth.  Clairvoyants, 
seeing  this  doll-like  little  figure  hovering  about  (and 
afterwards  within)  the  body  of  the  mother,  have 
sometimes  mistaken  it  for  the  soul  of  the  coming 
baby,  instead  of  the  mould  of  its  physical  body.  When 
the  foetus  has  grown  to  the  size  of  the  mould,  that 
much  of  its  task  is  successfully  achieved,  and  it  sheds 
that  outer  husk  of  itself  and  unfolds  the  form  of  the 
next  stage  at  which  it  has  to  aim — the  size,  shape  and 
condition  of  the  body  as  it  ought  to  be  (taking  only 
the  elemental's  work  into  account)  at  the  time  when 
it  proposes  to  leave  it.  All  further  growth  of  the 
body  after  the  elemental  has  retired  is  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  ego  himself. 

In  both  of  these  cases  the  elemental  uses  itself  as 
the  mould.  Its  colours  represent  to  a  large  extent 
the  qualities  which  it  is  calculated  to  evoke  in  the 
body  which  it  has  to  build,  and  its  form  is  also  usually 
that  which  is  destined  for  him.  It  exists  only  for  its 
work,  and  when  the  amount  of  force  with  which  it 
has  originally  been  supplied  is  exhausted,  there  is  no 


302  THE  INNER  LIFE 

longer  any  power  left  to  hold  together  the  particles, 
and  it  simply  disintegrates. 

This  elemental  takes  charge  of  the  body  from  the 
first,  but  some  time  before  physical  birth  takes  place 
the  ego  also  comes  into  contact  with  his  future  habi- 
tation, and  from  that  time  onwards  the  two  forces 
are  working  side  by  side.  Sometimes  the  character- 
istics which  the  elemental  is  directed  to  impose  are 
but  few  in  number,  and  consequently  it  is  able  to  re- 
tire at  a  comparatively  early  age,  and  to  leave  the  ego 
in  full  control  of  the  body.  In  other  cases,  where  the 
limitations  are  of  such  a  character  that  a  good  deal 
of  time  is  necessary  for  their  development,  it  may 
retain  its  position  until  the  body  is  seven  years  old. 
Egos  differ  greatly  in  the  interest  which  they  take  in 
their  physical  vehicles,  for  some  hover  over  them 
anxiously  from  the  first  and  take  a  good  deal  of 
trouble  about  them,  while  others  are  almost  entirely 
careless  with  regard  to  the  whole  matter. 

When  a  child  is  still-born,  there  has  usually  been  no 
ego  behind  it,  and  consequently  no  elemental.  There 
are  vast  hosts  of  souls  seeking  reincarnation,  and 
many  of  them  are  still  at  so  early  a  stage  of  their 
evolution  that  almost  any  ordinary  surroundings 
would  be  equally  suitable  for  them ;  they  have  so  many 
lessons  to  learn  that  it  matters  little  with  which  one 
they  begin,  and  almost  any  conceivable  set  of  sur- 
roundings will  teach  them  something  which  they  sorely 
need.  Nevertheless  it  does  sometimes  happen  that 
there  is  not  at  a  given  time  any  ego  able  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  a  particular  opportunity,  and  in  that  case, 
though  the  body  may  be  formed  to  a  certain  extent  by 
the  thought  of  the  mother,  as  there  is  no  ego  to  occupy 
it,  it  is  never  really  alive. 

In  building  the  form  the  elemental  takes  the  etheric 


THE  RETURN  TO  BIRTH  303 

matter  which  it  needs  from  that  which  it  finds  ready 
within  the  body  of  the  mother.  That  is  one  reason 
for  the  necessity  of  the  greatest  care  on  the  part  of 
that  mother  during  the  time  the  child's  body  is  being 
formed.  If  she  supplies  nothing  but  the  best  and  pur- 
est materials,  the  elemental  will  find  itself  compelled 
to  choose  from  those.  Another  factor  which  has  an 
exceedingly  powerful  influence  is  the  thought  of  the 
mother  during  this  period,  for  that  also  moulds  the 
shape  which  is  slowly  growing  within  her.  Again  this 
shows  us  why  the  mother's  thought  must  at  that  time 
be  especially  pure  and  high,  why  she  must  be  kept 
away  altogether  from  all  coarse  or  agitating  influ- 
ences, why  only  the  most  beautiful  forms  and  colours 
should  surround  her,  and  the  most  harmonious  con- 
ditions should  prevail  in  her  neighbourhood. 

If  the  elemental's  instructions  do  not  include  some 
special  development  in  the  way  of  features,  such  as 
unusual  beauty  or  unusual  ugliness,  that  part  of  the 
shaping  of  the  new  body  will  most  likely  be  done 
by  the  thought  of  the  mother — and  by  the  thought- 
forms  which  are  constantly  floating  round  her.  If 
she  thinks  often  with  devoted  love  of  her  husband 
there  is  a  strong  probability  that  the  child  will  re- 
semble its  father;  if  on  the  contrary  she  looks  often 
at  her  reflection  in  the  mirror  and  thinks  much  about 
herself,  it  is  probable  that  the  child  will  bear  con- 
siderable resemblance  to  her.  Equally,  if  it  happens 
that  she  is  constantly  thinking  with  devoted  affection 
or  admiration  of  some  third  person,  the  child  is 
likely  to  resemble  that  person — always  supposing 
that  the  elemental  has  no  definite  instructions  in  this 
matter.  When  the  children  grow  older  their  physi- 
cal bodies  are  influenced  largely  by  their  own 
thoughts,    and    as    these    differ    from    those    of    the 


S04  THE  INNER  LIFE 

mother,  we  often  see  that  considerable  changes  in 
physical  appearance  take  place,  the  child  in  some 
cases  growing  more  beautiful  and  in  other  cases 
less  so  as  the  years  roll  by.  "As  a  man  thinks,  so  is 
he"  is  true  on  the  physical  plane  as  well  as  on  others ; 
and  if  the  thought  is  always  calm  and  serene,  the 
face  will  surely  reflect  it. 

To  an  advanced  ego  all  the  earlier  stages  of  child- 
hood are  naturally  exceedingly  wearisome.  I  remem- 
ber that  the  late  Mr.  T.  Subba  Rao  complained  quite 
bitterly  about  it  when  he  first  took  his  new  body. 
He  declared  that,  do  what  he  would,  he  could  not 
make  that  baby  body  sleep  more  than  twenty  hours 
out  of  the  day,  and  the  rest  of  the  time  he  actually 
had  to  wait  near  it  and  watch  it  squirming  about, 
and  listen  to  its  plaintive  ululations,  and  endure  to 
be  fed  through  it  with  tasteless  and  nauseous  varie- 
ties of  pap!  Sometimes  a  really  advanced  person 
decides  to  avoid  all  this  by  asking  someone  else  to 
give  him  an  adult  body,  a  sacrifice  which  any  of  his 
disciples  would  always  be  delighted  to  make  for  him. 

But  this  method  also  has  its  drawbacks.  However 
wearisome  it  may  be  to  pass  through  childhood,  at 
least  in  that  way  a  man  grows  a  body  for  himself, 
which  is  as  nearly  as  may  be  an  expression  of  him, 
and  agrees  with  all  his  little  peculiarities;  but  one 
who  takes  an  adult  body  finds  it  already  full  of  pe- 
culiarities of  its  own,  which  have  worn  in  it  deep 
grooves  of  habit  that  cannot  readily  be  changed.  It 
cannot  but  be  to  some  extent  a  misfit,  and  it  takes 
a  long  time  to  make  its  vibrations  synchronise  with 
his  own.  An  ego  coming  into  incarnation  has  always 
to  adapt  himself  to  a  new  set  of  conditions,  but  when 
he  comes  to  birth  in  the  ordinary  way  this  can  at 
least  be  done  gradually,  as  the  child  grows  up;  but 


PERSONAL  CHARACTERISTICS  305 

one  who  takes  an  adult  body  has  instantly  to  adapt 
himself  to  all  these  fresh  surroundings,  which  is  often 
a  very  difficult  business.  In  this  case  he  has  retained 
his  old  astral  and  mental  bodies;  but  they  are  natur- 
ally counterparts  of  his  previous  vehicle,  and  they 
have  to  be  adapted  to  the  new  form.  Once  more,  if 
that  form  be  a  baby  this  can  be  done  gradually,  but 
if  it  is  an  adult  form  it  must  be  done  immediately, 
which  means  an  amount  of  strain  that  is  distinctly 
unpleasant. 


Personal  Characteristics 

I  have  looked  up  many  cases,  and  I  find  that  for 
the  ordinary  man  there  seems  to  be  but  little  con- 
tinuity of  personal  appearance  life  after  life;  but  I 
have  known  cases  of  strong  similarity  as  well  as 
great  unlikeness.  As  the  physical  body  is  to  some  ex- 
tent an  expression  of  the  ego,  and  that  remains  the 
same,  there  must  be  some  cases  where  it  expresses  it- 
self in  similar  forms;  but  racial,  family  and  other 
characteristics  usually  override  this  tendency.  When 
an  individual  is  so  advanced  that  the  personality  and 
ego  are  unified,  the  personality  tends  to  have  impressed 
upon  it  the  characteristics  of  the  glorified  form  in  the 
causal  body,  which  is  relatively  permanent. 

When  the  man  is  an  adept  and  all  his  karma  is 
worked  out,  the  physical  body  is  the  nearest  possible 
presentment  of  that  glorified  form.  The  Masters 
will  therefore  remain  recognisable  through  any  num- 
ber of  incarnations.  I  have  noticed  that  one  of  the 
Masters  who  comparatively  recently  attained  adept- 


306  THE  INNER  LIFE 

ship  is  as  yet  not  quite  like  the  others,  having  some- 
what rugged  features.  I  am  sure  that  will  be  differ- 
ent in  the  next  incarnation.  I  should  not  expect  to 
see  much  difference  in  the  bodies  of  our  Masters, 
even  if  They  should  choose  to  take  others,  and  even 
though  they  might  be  of  another  race.  I  have  seen 
prototypes  of  what  bodies  are  to  be  like  in  the 
seventh  Race;  they  will  be  transcendently  beautiful. 

The  glorified  form  in  the  causal  body  is  an  ap- 
proach to  the  archetype,  and  comes  nearer  to  it  as 
man  developes.  The  human  form  appears  to  be  the 
model  for  the  highest  evolution  in  this  particular  solar 
system.  It  is  varied  slightly  in  different  planets, 
but  is  broadly  speaking  the  same  in  general  outline. 
In  other  solar  systems  forms  may  possibly  be  quite 
unlike  it;  we  have  no  information  on  that  point. 


Bringing  over  Past  Knowledge 

We  do  not  yet  know  with  any  certainty  the  laws 
which  govern  the  power  to  impress  the  detailed  knowl- 
edge of  one  life  upon  the  physical  brain  of  the  next. 
Such  evidence  as  is  at  present  before  us  seems  to 
show  that  details  are  usually  forgotten,  but  that 
broad  principles  appear  to  the  new  mind  as  self-evi- 
dent. Many  of  us  have  exclaimed  when  for  the  first 
time  in  this  incarnation  we  read  a  Theosophical  book: 
"This  is  exactly  what  I  have  always  felt,  but  I  did 
not  know  how  to  put  it  into  words!"  In  some  cases 
there  seems  scarcely  that  much  of  memory,  yet  as 
soon  as  the  teaching  is  presented  it  is  instantly  recog- 
nised  as  true.     Mrs.   Besant   as   Hypatia  must  un- 


BRINGING  OVER  PAST  KNOWLEDGE  307 

questionably  have  known  a  great  deal  of  this  philosophy 
which  was  not  clearly  formulated  in  her  present  brain 
during  the  orthodox  or  free-thought  periods  of  this  in- 
carnation. 

If  any  reliance  at  all  is  to  be  placed  upon  exoteric 
tradition,  even  the  Buddha  Himself,  who  descended 
from  higher  planes  with  the  definite  intention  of  tak- 
ing birth  to  help  the  world,  knew  nothing  clearly  of 
His  mission  after  He  had  entered  His  new  body,  and 
regained  full  knowledge  only  after  years  of  searching 
for  it.  Undoubtedly  He  could  have  known  from  the 
first  had  He  chosen,  but  He  did  not  choose;  He 
submitted  Himself  to  what  seems  to  be  the  common 
lot. 

It  is  possible  that  in  His  case  there  may  be  another 
explanation.  The  body  which  was  born  of  King 
Suddhodana  and  Queen  Maya  may  not  in  its  earlier 
years  have  been  inhabited  by  the  Lord  Buddha.  He 
may  have  acted  as  the  Christ  did;  He  may  have  asked 
one  of  His  disciples  to  take  care  of  that  vehicle  for 
Him  until  He  needed  it,  and  He  may  have  entered  it 
Himself  only  at  the  moment  when  it  fainted  after 
the  long  austerities  of  the  six  years  of  searching  for 
truth.  If  this  be  so,  then  the  reason  that  Prince  Sid- 
dartha  did  not  remember  all  that  the  Lord  Buddha 
previously  knew  was  because  He  was  not  the  same 
person.  But  in  any  case  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
ego,  who  is  the  true  man,  always  knows  what  he  has 
once  learned;  but  he  is  not  always  able  to  impress  it 
upon  his  new  brain  without  the  help  of  a  suggestion 
from  without. 

Fortunately  for  our  students  it  seems  to  be  an  in- 
variable rule  that  one  who  has  accepted  occult  truth 
in  one  life  always  comes  into  contact  with  it  in  the 
next,  and  so  revives  his  dormant  memory.     I  suppose 


308  THE  INNER  LIFE 

we  may  say  that  the  opportunity  of  thus  recovering 
the  truth  is  the  karma  of  having  accepted  it,  and  of 
having  earnestly  tried  to  live  according  to  it  in  the 
previous  incarnation.  There  is,  however,  every  proba- 
bility that  much  of  what  we  now  call  distinctively 
Theosophical  belief  will  be  the  ordinary  accepted 
knowledge  of  the  day  by  the  time  that  we  return  to 
take  up  again  our  work  on  the  physical  plane,  so  it 
may  be  that  we  shall  all  be  educated  in  it  as  a  matter 
of  course.  If  that  be  so,  the  difference  between  those 
who  have  studied  it  this  time  and  those  who  have  not 
will  be  that  the  former  will  take  it  up  with  enthu- 
siasm and  make  rapid  progress,  while  to  the  latter 
it  will  mean  no  more  than  does  the  science  of  to-day 
to  the  entirely  unscientific  mind.  In  any  case,  let  no 
one  for  a  moment  suppose  that  the  benefit  of  our  study 
and  hard  work  can  ever  be  lost. 


The  Intervals  between  Lives 

A  certain  amount  of  misconception  exists  among 
students  with  regard  to  the  average  interval  which 
elapses  between  two  incarnations.  It  seems  probable 
that  we  misunderstood  the  information  given  on  this 
subject  in  the  early  days  of  the  Society,  and  the  state- 
ments then  made  have  been  copied  without  comment 
even  into  some  of  the  later  books.  Most  of  the  closer 
students  have  come  to  know  more  or  less  accurately 
the  facts  of  the  case,  but  so  far  as  I  am  aware  noth- 
ing resembling  a  tabulation  of  averages  for  the  vari- 
ous classes  of  egos  has  yet  been  published. 

At  the  end  of  the  chapter  on  the  heaven-world  (then 


THE  INTERVALS  BETWEEN  LIVES  309 

called  devachan)  in  Mr.  Sinnett's  monumental  work 
Esoteric  Buddhism,  the  statement  is  made  that  the 
whole  period  between  death  and  the  next  physical 
birth  varies  greatly  in  the  case  of  different  persons, 
but  rebirth  in  less  than  fifteen  hundred  years  is 
spoken  of  as  almost  impossible,  while  the  stay  in 
devachan  which  rewards  a  very  rich  karma  is  said 
sometimes  to  extend  to  enormous  periods.  This  state- 
ment is  based  upon  passages  in  the  same  letters  from 
which  is  derived  all  the  rest  of  this  most  interesting 
book,  and  there  is  no  question  whatever  that  Mr.  Sin- 
nett  has  quite  accurately  reported  what  was  told  to 
him.  The  same  general  idea  is  put  forward  by 
Madame  Blavatsky  in  The  Secret  Doctrine  (ii.  317)  : 
"Let  us  remember  that,  save  in  the  case  of  young  chil- 
dren and  of  individuals  whose  lives  have  been  vio- 
lently cut  off  by  some  accident,  no  spiritual  entity  can 
reincarnate  before  a  period  of  many  centuries  has 
elapsed." 

In  those  earlier  days  we  took  this  fifteen  hundred 
years  as  an  average  for  humanity,  but  later  investiga- 
tions have  clearly  shown  us  that  it  could  not  have  been 
meant  exactly  in  that  way.  To  make  the  statement 
square  with  the  observed  facts,  it  must  be  either 
greatly  limited  or  greatly  extended.  If  confined  to  a 
small  group  of  the  most  advanced  of  the  human  race 
it  would  be  approximately  correct;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  if  it  were  extended  to  include  not  only  human- 
ity but  the  vast  hosts  of  the  deva  kingdom,  it  might 
again  be  taken  as  coming  very  near  to  the  truth.  In 
the  case  of  the  quotation  from  The  Secret  Doctrine 
the  expression  spiritual  entities  may  be  read  as  imply- 
ing that  Madame  Blavatsky  was  speaking  only  of 
highly  developed  persons;  but  the  passage  from  Eso- 
teric Buddhism  gives  us  fifteen  hundred  years  almost 
as  a  minimum. 


310  THE  INNER  LIFE 

We  are  given  to  understand  that  the  letters  upon 
which  Esoteric  Buddhism  was  founded  were  written 
by  various  pupils  of  the  Masters  under  Their  general 
direction;  and  so,  while  there  is  plenty  of  room  for 
inaccuracies  to  creep  in  (as  we  know  that  they  have 
crept  in)  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  writers 
did  not  know  facts  quite  readily  accessible  to  anyone 
who  can  watch  the  process  of  reincarnation.  We  must 
remember  that  the  letter  was  written  not  to  the  world 
at  large  but  quite  definitely  to  Mr.  Sinnett,  with  possi- 
bly a  view  to  the  few  others  who  were  at  that  time 
studying  with  him.  To  state  such  an  average  for 
them  would  be  reasonably  exact,  and  perhaps  this  is 
what  was  done;  but  we  certainly  cannot  accept  it  as 
the  mean  proportion  for  the  whole  human  race  at  the 
present  time. 

It  is  probably  impossible  to  arrive  at  a  really  accu- 
rate average,  for  in  order  to  do  that  it  would  be 
necessary  to  know  at  least  approximately  the  number 
in  each  of  the  different  classes  of  monads.  Something 
of  the  nature  of  an  estimate  for  each  of  the  main 
classes  may  be  given,  though  even  then  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  there  will  necessarily  be  wide  indi- 
vidual variations  on  each  side  of  it. 

Three  principal  factors  have  to  be  taken  into  ac- 
count; the  class  to  which  an  ego  belongs,  the  mode  in 
which  he  has  attained  individualisation,  and  the  length 
and  nature  of  his  last  life.  Let  us  then  take  up  the 
various  classes  of  humanity  in  their  order,  using  the 
nomenclature  decided  upon  by  Mrs.  Besant  in  the  table 
facing  page  213. 

Lords  of  the  Moon 
At  the  head  of  that  list  appear  the  Lords  of  the 


THE  INTERVALS  BETWEEN  LIVES  311 

Moon — those  who  attained  the  arhat  level  at  some 
time  or  other  during  the  evolution  of  the  moon-chain. 
For  that  humanity,  as  for  all  others,  seven  paths  open 
when  they  have  attained  the  level  assigned  to  their 
chain;  and  in  this  case  one  of  those  paths  brought  a 
certain  proportion  of  the  Lords  of  the  Moon  over  to 
the  earth-chain  to  direct  the  earlier  stages  of  its  evo- 
lution. All  of  these,  however,  have  long  since  attained 
adeptship,  and  we  need  therefore  take  no  account  of 
them  in  the  consideration  of  our  present  subject. 

Moon-Men.     (First  Order) 

The  next  class  is  the  first  order  of  the  Moon-men, 
and  that  is  a  class  so  large  and  varied  that  it  will  be 
necessary  for  us  to  discuss  it  in  the  several  subdi- 
visions given  in  the  chapter  on  monads  from  the  moon. 

1  &  2.  The  first  class,  as  given  there,  includes  those 
who  even  on  the  moon-chain  were  already  on  the  Path ; 
and  the  second  consists  of  those  who  were  individual- 
ised in  the  fourth  round  of  the  moon-chain.  In  our 
present  chapter  we  need  not  consider  either  of  these 
classes,  since  their  members  have  attained  adeptship, 
and  so  the  question  of  incarnations  and  the  intervals 
between  them  no  longer  concerns  them. 

3.  Those  who  attained  individualisation  in  the  fifth 
round  of  the  moon-chain. 

Among  these,  those  who  are  already  on  the  Path 
are  usually  taking  a  continuous  succession  of  incar- 
nations, so  that  for  them  the  question  of  the  interval 
between  lives  does  not  arise.  If,  however,  they  are  for 
some  reason  not  as  yet  taking  the  special  series  of  lives 
which  usually  follows  upon  initiation,  their  intervals 
are  very  long — probably  at  the  least  fifteen  hundred 
or  two  thousand  years,  or  even  more.    Though  not  so 


312  THE  INNER   LIFE 

usual  as  the  series  of  rapid  incarnations,  this  does 
sometimes  occur;  for  among  the  cases  known  to  us  of 
those  who  passed  the  first  initiation  some  considerable 
time  ago,  one  ego  has  been  taking  successive  incarna- 
tions in  physical  life  ever  since,  with  scarcely  any 
break,  while  another  has  been  away  from  physical  life 
for  two  thousand  three  hundred  years;  and  yet  the  re- 
sult so  far  as  progress  on  the  Path  is  concerned  seems 
to  have  been  exactly  the  same. 

The  apportioning  of  the  different  stages  of  a  long 
interval  like  this  varies  considerably  in  different  cases. 
The  stay  upon  the  astral  plane  is  short,  or  the  ego  may 
even  pass  through  it  rapidly  and  unconsciously.  Most 
of  the  time  is  passed  in  the  highest  level  of  the  heaven- 
world,  and  then,  after  that  is  over,  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  conscious  life  in  the  causal  body  precedes  the 
next  descent  into  birth.  This  life  of  the  ego  on  its 
own  plane  is  at  this  stage  only  about  one-tenth  of  the 
entire  interval  between  the  earth-lives.  But  this  again 
is  a  matter  in  which  no  two  instances  are  alike. 

In  the  case  of  those  who  are  approaching  the  Path 
the  general  interval  is  not  far  from  twelve  hundred 
years  if  the  ego  has  been  individualised  slowly  by  in- 
tellectual development,  and  is  therefore  passing 
through  its  blissful  experiences  at  the  ordinary  rate. 
If,  however,  the  ego  has  been  individualised  suddenly 
by  a  rush  of  emotion  or  by  a  stupendous  effort  of  will, 
and  is  consequently  taking  his  bliss  in  the  more  con- 
centrated form,  his  interval  is  about  seven  hundred 
years.  Both  these  types  are  little  likely  to  stay  long 
upon  the  astral  plane;  probably  five  years  represents 
for  them  an  astral  life  of  fair  average  duration.  At 
the  other  end  of  their  stay  in  the  heaven-world  there 
most  likely  comes  a  certain  period  of  conscious  life  'u 
the  ego  on  its  own  plane,  but  this  does  not  exceed  ha! 
a-century  at  most. 


THE  INTERVALS  BETWEEN  LIVES  313 

During  their  more  recent  lives  we  find  that  it  has 
been  the  tendency  of  those  people  who  take  the  nor- 
mal interval  of  twelve  hundred  years  to  incarnate  suc- 
cessively in  the  different  sub-races.  Often  we  find 
them  running  twice  through  the  same  set  of  sub-races, 
first  in  male  and  then  in  female  vehicles,  or  vice  versa. 

The  fates  of  various  people  differ  greatly.  Some  go 
on  steadily  life  after  life,  but  nothing  particular  hap- 
pens to  them.  Others  are  constantly  in  trouble,  shock 
following  shock;  and  yet  both  are  advancing  along 
the  line  which  is  best  for  them.  It  often  happens  that 
if  a  man  dies  young,  he  is  born  again  in  the  same  sub- 
race,  and  when  a  man  goes  round  the  sub-races  twice, 
he  usually  takes  the  other  sex  on  the  second  journey. 
Broadly  speaking,  the  Indians  represent  the  first  sub- 
race  of  the  Aryan  root-race,  the  Arabs  the  second,  the 
Parsis  the  third,  the  Romance  nations  the  fourth  and 
the  Teutons  the  fifth.  If  a  man  takes  a  birth  in 
France,  he  does  not  need  one  in  Italy  or  Spain,  and 
the  same  is  true  of  Germany  and  England. 

Students  taking  the  seven  hundred  years  interval 
seem  to  have  more  the  habit  of  attaching  themselves 
to  one  sub-race  and  returning  to  it  whenever  possible, 
and  diverging  into  others  only  occasionally  in  order  to 
develope  special  qualities.  As  a  general  rule  successive 
incarnations  in  the  same  race  intensify  its  character- 
istics ;  equilibrium  is  brought  about  by  incarnating  in 
various  races,  or  by  travel  and  living  among  different 
people.  With  regard  to  this  matter,  the  idiosyncrasies 
of  the  ego  play  a  considerable  part.  I  mentioned  else- 
where how  the  strong  prepossession  in  the  mind  of  the 
Jews  that  they  are  a  special  and  chosen  people  tends 
to  bring  them  back  into  the  same  race;  and  pride  of 
race  generally,  if  unusually  intense,  is  likely  to  work 
in  that  direction. 


SI  4  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Even  pride  of  family  is  not  without  its  result  also, 
and  I  have  known  of  several  cases  in  which,  when  ab- 
normally developed,  it  has  brought  the  ego  back  into 
the  line  of  his  direct  descendants  two  or  three  times 
before  he  got  free.  In  the  beginning  of  these  studies 
it  was  given  to  us  as  a  general  rule  that  a  man  usually 
takes  not  less  than  three  and  not  more  than  seven  in- 
carnations in  one  sex  before  passing  over  to  the  other. 
Although  the  many  researches  which  we  have  since 
undertaken  have  to  a  large  extent  confirmed  this  gen- 
eral rule,  they  have  also  shown  us  a  great  number  of 
exceptions  to  it,  some  people  taking  long  lines  of  in- 
carnations in  one  sex  before  turning  to  the  other,  and 
others  for  a  time  incarnating  alternately  in  male  and 
female  bodies;  but  most  of  these  were  in  the  case  of 
egos  who  were  already  advanced  somewhat  beyond  the 
average,  and  were  therefore  probably  receiving  special 
treatment. 

Evidently  there  is  no  hesitation  in  modifying  the 
general  rule  to  suit  particular  cases,  when  for  any 
reason  that  is  seen  to  be  desirable.  Though  the  laws 
governing  reincarnation  are  allowed  to  work  mechani- 
cally upon  the  vast  majority  of  undeveloped  egos,  it 
seems  clear  from  the  instances  observed  that  as  soon 
as  any  one  ego  makes  a  little  progress  of  any  sort  and 
so  becomes  hopeful  from  the  evolutionary  point  of 
view,  considerable  elasticity  is  introduced  into  the  ar- 
rangements, and  within  certain  definite  limits  he  is 
born  into  the  sex,  race  and  conditions  which  are  best 
suited  to  give  him  an  opportunity  of  strengthening  the 
weak  points  in  his  character. 

In  the  case  of  men  who  have  distinguished  them- 
selves greatly  along  artistic,  scientific  or  religious  lines, 
the  interval  is  usually  much  the  same,  though  the  ap- 
portioning may  differ  slightly.    The  general  tendency 


THE  INTERVALS  BETWEEN  LIVES  315 

is  to  a  longer  astral  and  a  shorter  causal  life,  especi- 
ally in  the  case  of  the  religious  and  the  artistic.  A 
great  philosopher  sometimes  enormously  extends  his 
life  in  the  heaven-world ;  I  remember  that  Madame  Bla- 
vatsky  has  somewhere  stated  that  Plato  would  be  likely 
to  stay  away  from  earth  for  at  least  ten  thousand 
years,  though  I  imagine  that  this  is  an  entirely  excep- 
tional case. 

4.  Those  who  attained  individualisation  in  the  sixth 
round  of  the  moon-chain ;  typical  examples  of  whom  are 
the  country  gentlemen  and  professional  men. 

Their  intervals  vary  greatly,  say  from  six  hundred 
to  a  thousand  years,  of  which  perhaps  twenty  or 
twenty-five  may  be  spent  upon  the  astral  plane,  and  all 
the  rest  in  various  stages  of  the  heaven-world.  There 
is  probably  just  a  touch  of  consciousness  in  the  ego  on 
its  own  plane,  but  only  a  touch. 

5.  Those  who  individualised  in  the  seventh  round  of 
the  moon-chain — the  upper  middle  class.  This  class 
generally  has  an  interval  between  lives  of  perhaps  five 
hundred  years,  of  which  about  twenty-five  are  passed 
on  the  astral  plane  and  the  rest  in  the  heaven-world. 
In  such  a  case  there  is  no  conscious  life  in  the  causal 
body,  though  of  course,  like  all  other  human  beings, 
they  have  the  flash  of  memory  and  of  prescience  which 
is  always  vouchsafed  to  each  ego  when  he  touches  his 
own  plane  between  two  physical  incarnations. 

Moon-men,  Second  Order.  The  bourgeoisie.  Their 
interval  between  lives  is  commonly  two  hundred  to 
three  hundred  years,  of  which  about  forty  are  usually 
spent  upon  the  astral  plane,  and  the  rest  in  the  lower 
levels  of  the  heaven-world. 

In  this,  as  in  all  the  other  types,  individualisation 
may  have  been  obtained  by  intelligence  or  by  emotion, 
and  there  will  be  a  corresponding  difference  in  the  aver- 


316  THE  INNER  LIFE 

age  length  of  the  intervals  between  successive  incarna- 
tions, but  in  all  these  lower  classes  the  difference 
caused  by  the  mode  of  individualisation  is  much  less 
in  proportion  than  in  the  higher  class. 

Moon  Animal-men.  The  pioneers  of  the  first  round 
of  the  earth-chain,  represented  now  by  the  skilled 
workers  of  the  world.  Such  men  have  usually  an  in- 
terval between  lives  varying  from  one  hundred  to  two 
hundred  years,  about  forty  of  which  are  spent  on  the 
middle  level  of  the  astral  plane,  and  the  rest  on  some 
of  the  lower  sub-planes  of  the  heaven-world. 

Moon-animals,  First  class.  Now  the  un-skilled 
labourers. 

Their  interval  between  lives  varies  from  sixty  to  a 
hundred  years,  of  which  from  forty  to  fifty  are  spent 
on  the  lower  parts  of  the  astral  plane,  and  the  re- 
mainder on  the  lowest  division  of  the  heaven-world. 

Moon-animals,  Second  class.  The  drunkards  and 
the  unemployable. 

Such  people  are  generally  absent  from  the  world 
some  forty  or  fifty  years,  which  they  spend  entirely 
on  the  astral  plane — usually  on  the  lowest  subdivision 
but  one. 

Moon-animals,  Third  class.  The  lowest  of  human- 
ity. 

Their  interval  between  lives  is  often  about  five 
years,  spent  on  the  lowest  sub-plane  of  the  astral — 
unless  they  are  earth-bound  by  crime,  which  not  in- 
frequently happens. 

In  all  the  cases  mentioned  above,  a  certain  differ- 
ence is  produced  by  the  mode  of  individualisation,  but 
this  difference  is  much  less  in  proportion  in  the  lower 
classes.  Still  on  the  whole  those  individualised 
through  intellect  tend  always  to  take  the  longer  of 
the   two   intervals   mentioned   as   possible   for   them, 


THE  INTERVALS  BETWEEN  LIVES  317 

whereas  those  who  come  along  other  paths  tend  to 
take  the  shorter. 

A  third  factor  which  exercises  great  influence  is 
the  length  and  nature  of  the  individual  life.  Obvi- 
ously an  ego  who  casts  aside  his  physical  body  in 
childhood  has  not  had  the  opportunity  in  that  body 
to  generate  a  sufficient  amount  of  spiritual  force  to 
keep  him  on  the  higher  planes  for  the  length  of  time 
common  to  his  type.  Generally  speaking,  then,  a  man 
who  dies  young  will  have  a  shorter  interval  than  his 
neighbour  who  lives  to  old  age.  Generally  speaking, 
again,  the  man  dying  young  is  likely  to  have  a  greater 
proportion  of  astral  life,  because  most  of  the  strong 
emotions  which  work  themselves  out  in  astral  life  are 
generated  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  physical  exist- 
ence, whereas  the  more  spiritual  energy  which  finds 
its  result  in  the  heaven-life  is  likely  to  continue  until 
the  end  or  near  the  end  of  the  period  spent  upon 
earth. 

The  character  of  the  man  during  his  earth-life  is  a 
consideration  of  the  utmost  importance.  Some  men 
lead  a  long  life  in  which  there  is  scarcely  anything  of 
spirituality,  and  that  naturally  tends  to  shorten  the 
interval  between  their  incarnations  and  brings  it  far 
below  what  is  common  for  their  class.  Probably,  too, 
in  such  a  case  quite  an  undue  proportion  of  the  inter- 
val would  be  spent  on  the  astral  plane.  The  aver- 
ages given,  therefore,  are  only  averages,  and  it  must 
be  clearly  understood  that  a  wide  range  on  each  side 
of  them  is  usually  possible,  so  that  the  various  classes 
may  considerably  over-lap  one  another. 

We  have  only  recently  come  to  understand  the  im- 
portance, in  this  regard,  of  strong  mutual  affection. 
From  our  study  of  past  lives  it  has  become  clear  to 
us   that   egos   are   closely   associated   in   families   or 


318  THE   1SSER  LIFE 

groups,  and  that  this  connection  tends  on  the  whole 
to  equalise  the  intervals  between  the  lives  of  the  mem- 
bers of  such  a  group.  It  is  evidently  considered  ne 
saiy  that  they  should  prepare  for  future  work  to- 
gether by  constant  association  as  they  evolve,  and  it 
is  manifest  that  intervals  which  would  otherwise  be 
shorter  or  longer  are  so  dealt  with  as  to  bring  the 
entire  party  into  incarnation  together,  not  once  but 
many  times. 

This  unquestionably  involves  an  increase  or  de- 
crease of  the  rate  at  which  the  spiritual  force  dis- 
charges itself,  and  it  is  clear  that  this  must  be  a  mat- 
ter of  careful  regulation  by  the  Authorities  in  charge 
of  evolution.  Though  we  have  not  yet  discovered  the 
exact  law  which  regulates  it,  there  is  little  doubt 
that  when  we  do  we  shall  find  that  it  works  auto- 
matically, so  that  the  maximum  of  result  may  be 
achieved  without  injustice  to  any  individual  con- 
cerned. 

There  seems  to  be  a  type  of  students  who  are  al- 
ways yearning  to  discover  injustice  in  the  working 
of  the  evolutionary  machinery;  but  those  who  have 
spent  many  years  in  the  investigation  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  nature  know  more  and  more  certainly  as 
they  go  on  that  injustice  is  an  impossibility,  and  that 
any  case  in  which  we  think  we  descry  it  is  only  a  case 
in  which  our  knowledge  is  as  yet  imperfect.  Those 
who  have  probed  the  mysteries  of  nature  most  deeply 
are  precisely  those  who  have  acquired  the  utter  cer- 
tainty that  He  who  doeth  all  things  doeth  all  things 
well. 


JigljiJ]  ^ectton 


^Karnra 


EIGHTH  SECTIOX 


The  Law  of  Equilibrium 

HEN  we  are  considering  the  life  of  man  we 
have  three  principal  forces  to  take  into 
account,  all  interacting  and  limiting  one 
another :  the  steady  pressure  of  evolution, 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect  which  we 
call  karma,  and  the  free-will  of  man.  The  action  of 
the  evolutionary  force  has,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  no 
reference  whatever  to  the  man's  pleasure  or  pain, 
but  only  to  his  progress,  or  rather  his  opportunities 
for  progress.  One  would  say  that  it  was  absolutely 
indifferent  as  to  whether  the  man  was  happy  or  un- 
happy, and  that  it  might  press  him  sometimes  into 
one  of  these  conditions  and  sometimes  into  the  other, 
according  to  what  was  best  calculated  to  afford  op- 
portunity for  the  development  of  the  particular  vir- 
tue on  the  formation  of  which  he  is  for  the  moment 
engaged.  Karma  appears  as  the  manifestation  of  the 
action  of  the  man's  free-will  in  the  past.  He  has  ac- 
cumulated energies  which  either  afford  opportunities 
for  the  evolutionary  force,  or  limit  it  in  its  operation. 
Then  the  man's  present  use  of  such  free-will  as  he 
possesses  is  a  third  factor. 

The  doctrine  of  karma  explains  that  advancement 


322  THE  INNER  LIFE 

and  well-being  are  the  results  of  well-doing;  but  there 
should  be  no  mistake  as  to  exactly  what  is  meant 
by  well-doing  and  well-being  respectively.  The  ob- 
ject of  the  entire  scheme  is,  so  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned, the  evolution  of  humanity;  and  consequently 
the  man  who  does  best  is  he  who  does  most  to  help 
forward  the  evolution  of  others  as  well  as  his  own. 
The  man  who  does  this  to  the  utmost  extent  of  his 
power  aud  opportunity  in  one  life  will  certainly  find 
himself  in  the  next  in  possession  of  greater  power  and 
wider  opportunities.  These  are  not  unlikely  to  be 
accompanied  by  worldly  wealth  and  power,  because 
the  very  possession  of  these  usually  gives  the  oppor- 
tunity required,  but  they  are  by  no  means  a  necessary 
part  of  the  karma;  and  it  is  important  for  us  to  bear 
in  mind  that  the  result  of  usefulness  is  always  the  op- 
portunity for  further  and  wider  usefulness,  and  we 
must  not  consider  the  occasional  concomitants  of  that 
opportunity  as  themselves  the  reward  of  the  work 
done  in  the  last  incarnation. 

One  instinctively  shrinks  from  the  use  of  such 
words  as  reward  and  punishment,  because  they  seem 
to  imply  the  existence,  somewhere  in  the  background, 
of  an  irresponsible  being  who  deals  out  both  at  will. 
We  shall  get  a  truer  idea  of  the  way  in  which  karma 
works  if  we  think  of  it  as  a  necessary  readjustment 
of  equilibrium  disturbed  by  our  action — as  a  kind  of 
illustration  of  the  law  that  action  and  reaction  are 
always  equal.  It  will  also  help  us  much  in  our  think- 
ing if  we  try  to  take  a  broader  view  of  it — to  regard 
it  from  the  point  of  view  of  those  who  administer 
its  laws  rather  than  from  our  own. 

Though  the  inevitable  law  7nust  sooner  or  later 
bring  to  each  man  unerringly  the  result  of  his  own 
work,  there  is  no  immediate  hurry  about  it;  in  the 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  323 

counsels  of  the  eternal  there  is  always  time  enough, 
and  the  first  object  is  the  evolution  of  humanity. 
Therefore  it  is  that  one  who  shows  himself  a  willing 
and  useful  instrument  in  forwarding  that  evolution 
always  receives  as  his  "reward"  the  opportunity  of 
helping  it  still  further,  and  thus,  in  doing  good  to 
others,  to  do  best  of  all  for  himself.  Of  course  if  the 
thought  of  self-advancement  were  his  motive  for  thus 
acting,  the  selfishness  of  the  idea  would  vitiate  the 
action  and  narrow  its  results;  but  if,  forgetting  him- 
self altogether,  he  devotes  his  energies  to  the  single 
aim  of  helping  in  the  great  work,  the  effect  upon  his 
own  future  will  undoubtedly  be  as  stated. 

A  definite  protest  ought  once  for  all  to  be  entered 
against  the  theory  that  suffering  is  the  necessary  con- 
dition of  spiritual  progress.  Exercise  is  the  con- 
dition of  attaining  physical  strength,  but  it  need  not 
be  painful  exercise ;  if  a  man  is  willing  to  take  a  walk 
every  day,  there  is  no  need  to  torture  him  on  the  tread- 
mill in  order  to  develop  the  muscles  of  his  legs.  For 
spiritual  progress  a  man  must  develope  virtue,  unsel- 
fishness, helpfulness — that  is  to  say,  he  must  learn 
to  move  in  harmony  with  the  great  cosmic  law;  and 
if  he  does  this  willingly  there  is  no  suffering  for  him 
but  that  which  comes  from  sympathy  with  others. 

Granted  that  at  the  present  time  most  men  refuse 
to  do  this,  that  when  they  set  themselves  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  great  law  suffering  invariably  follows, 
and  that  the  eventual  result  of  many  such  experiences 
is  to  convince  them  that  the  path  of  wickedness  and 
selfishness  is  also  the  path  of  folly;  in  this  sense  it  is 
true  that  suffering  conduces  to  progress  in  those  par- 
ticular cases.  But  because  we  wilfully  elect  to  offend 
against  the  law,  and  thereby  bring  down  suffering 
upon  ourselves,  we  have  surely  no  right  so  to  bias- 


324  THE  INNER  LIFE 

pheme  the  great  law  of  the  universe  as  to  say  that 
it  has  ordered  matters  so  badly  that  without  suffer- 
ing no  progress  can  be  made.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
if  a  man  only  will,  he  can  make  far  more  rapid 
progress  without  suffering  at  all. 

It  must,  however,  be  remembered  that  any  man 
who  has  once  realised  the  glorious  goal  which  lies 
before  us  can  never  be  perfectly  happy  until  he  has 
attained  that  goal,  and  that  he  finds  an  ever-present 
source  of  dissatisfaction  in  his  own  failings.  Now 
even  dissatisfaction  is  a  modified  form  of  suffer- 
ing; and  from  that  no  man  can  hope  to  be  free  until 
the  imperfection  has  been  outgrown.  "God,  Thou 
hast  made  us  for  Thyself,  and  our  hearts  are  ever  rest- 
less till  they  find  their  rest  in  Thee." 

Whether  it  is  comforting  or  the  reverse  to  know 
that  one's  sufferings  are  deserved  may  be  a  matter 
of  opinion ;  but  that  in  no  way  alters  the  undoubted 
fact  that  unless  they  had  been  so  deserved  they  could 
not  possibly  come  to  us.  It  is  lamentable  that  so 
many  people  should  adopt  the  unphilosophical  and 
indeed  childish  attitude  which  leads  them  to  assume 
that  any  idea  which  does  not  fall  in  with  their  par- 
ticular sectarian  preconceptions  cannot  possibly  be 
true.  Unintelligent  people  constantly  say:  "The 
Theosophical  teaching  about  karma  does  not  seem  to 
me  so  comfortable  as  the  Christian  idea  of  forgiveness 
of  sins,"  or  "The  Theosophical  heaven-world  does  not 
seem  so  real  and  beautiful  as  the  Christian,  and  so 
I  will  not  believe  in  it." 

They  evidently  think,  poor  creatures,  that  their  likes 
and  dislikes  are  powerful  enough  to  alter  the  laws  of 
the  universe,  and  that  nothing  of  which  they  do  not 
approve  can  possibly  be  on  any  plane.  We,  however, 
are  engaged  in  studying  the  facts  of  existence,  which 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  325 

after  all  are  not  modified  because  Mr.  and  Mrs.  So- 
and-so  would  rather  believe  them  to  be  otherwise 
than  they  are.  If  it  were  possible  for  anyone  to  be 
an  innocent  victim  there  would  be  no  certainty  of  the 
operation  of  the  great  law  of  cause  and  effect  any- 
where in  the  universe,  which  would  be  a  far  more 
terrible  thing  for  us  than  having  to  work  out  the  re- 
sults of  any  amount  of  sin  committed  in  former  lives. 
It  can  never  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  the  law 
of  karma  is  not  the  vindictive  vengeance  of  some 
angry  deity,  but  simply  an  effect  naturally  and  in- 
evitably following  upon  its  cause  in  obedience  to  the 
action  of  universal  law- 

Every  individual  will  have  to  pay  to  the  utmost 
every  debt  that  he  contracts,  and  to  every  individual 
the  most  perfect  justice  will  be  done;  but  for  this 
purpose  it  is  not  always  necessary  that  a  vast  crowd 
of  egos  should  be  perpetually  meeting  one  another  in 
successive  lives.  If  one  man  so  acts  towards  another 
as  seriously  to  hasten  or  retard  his  evolution,  if  he 
does  anything  which  produces  upon  the  other  a 
marked  or  permanent  effect,  it  is  fairly  certain  that 
the  two  must  meet  again  in  order  that  the  debt  may 
be  adjusted.  It  is  obvious  that  that  may  be  dene  in 
various  ways. 

A  man  who  murders  another  may  conceivably 
sometimes  himself  be  murdered  in  turn  in  another 
incarnation;  but  he  can  cancel  the  karma  much  more 
satisfactorily  if  he  happens  to  have  an  opportunity  in 
that  next  incarnation  of  saving  the  life  of  his  former 
victim  at  the  cost  of  his  own.  It  would  seem  that 
sometimes  he  may  cancel  it  without  losing  his  own 
at  all;  for  among  the  many  lines  of  lives  which  have 
been  examined  we  found  at  least  one  case  in  which  a 
murderer  apparently  fully  expiated  his  fault  by  pa- 


326  THE  INNER  LIFE 

tiently  devoting  the  whole  of  a  later  life  to  the  service 
of  the  person  whom  he  had  previously  slain. 

There  is  a  vast  amount  of  minor  karma  which  ap- 
pears to  go  into  what  may  be  described  as  a  kind  of 
general  fund.  The  schoolboy  who  mischievously 
pinches  a  classmate  will  certainly  not  have  to  meet 
that  classmate  a  thousand  years  hence  under  other 
skies  in  order  to  be  pinched  by  him  in  return,  though 
it  is  unquestionable  that  even  in  so  small  a  matter  as 
this  perfect  justice  will  be  done  to  both  the  parties. 
Constantly  as  we  pass  on  through  life  we  shower 
small  kindnesses  upon  those  whom  we  meet;  care- 
lessly and  often  unconsciously  we  do  them  small  in- 
juries in  thought  and  word  and  deed.  Every  one  of 
these  brings  its  corresponding  result  of  good  or  evil 
to  ourselves,  and  we  too,  though  we  knew  it  not,  were 
the  agents  of  karma  in  those  very  actions.  The  small 
kindness  which  we  attempt  will  prove  a  failure  if  the 
recipient  does  not  deserve  even  that  much  of  help; 
the  careless  slight  will  pass  unnoticed  by  its  victim  if 
there  has  been  nothing  in  his  past  for  which  it  is  a 
fitting  retribution. 

It  is  not  easy  to  draw  the  line  between  these  two 
classes  of  karma — that  which  necessitates  personal 
adjustment  and  that  which  goes  into  the  general 
fund.  It  is  certain  that  whatever  influences  a  person 
seriously  belongs  to  the  first  category,  and  small 
everyday  troubles  belong  to  the  second;  but  we  have 
at  present  no  means  of  knowing  exactly  how  much 
influence  must  be  exerted  in  order  that  an  action  may 
rank  in  the  first  class. 

We  must  remember  that  some  of  the  greatest  and 
most  important  of  all  karma  can  never  be  personally 
repaid.  In  all  our  line  of  lives,  past  and  future,  no 
benefit  can  be  greater  than  that  which  the  Masters 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  327 

have  conferred  upon  us  in  giving  us  access  to  the 
Theosophical  teaching;  yet  to  Them  as  individuals 
we  can  make  absolutely  no  return,  since  They  are 
far  beyond  the  need  of  anything  that  we  can  do.  Yet 
even  this  stupendous  debt  must  be  discharged  like  all 
the  rest;  but  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  ever 
repay  it  is  by  handing  on  the  knowledge  to  others. 
So  we  see  that  here  is  another  kind  of  karma  which 
may  be  said  to  go  into  the  general  fund,  though  not 
quite  in  the  same  sense  as  before. 

A  querent  asks,  "If  it  is  a  man's  karma  to  have 
scarlet-fever,  by  what  mechanism  is  the  result 
brought  about?" 

I  do  not  think  that,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  ques- 
tioner means  it,  it  ever  is  a  man's  karma  to  have 
scarlet-fever.  It  is  his  karma  in  a  given  incarnation 
to  have  as  the  result  of  his  actions  in  past  lives  a 
certain  amount  of  physical  suffering,  and  if  a  scarlet- 
fever  germ  happens  to  be  at  hand  when  he  is  in  a 
sensitive  condition,  it  may  be  permitted  to  fasten 
upon  him,  and  part  of  that  debt  of- suffering  may  be 
discharged  in  that  way.  But  if  such  a  germ  does 
not  happen  to  be  there  at  the  moment,  one  of  cholera 
or  tuberculosis  will  do  just  as  well,  or  instead  of  a 
disease  there  may  be  a  broken  limb  caused  by  a  bit 
of  orange-peel  on  the  pavement  or  by  a  passing  motor 
car. 

I  am  aware  that  there  are  books  which  lay  down 
with  great  precision  the  exact  type  of  karma  which 
follows  upon  certain  actions — as,  for  example,  that  if 
a  man  is  rude  to  his  father  in  one  incarnation  he  will 
be  born  lame  of  the  right  leg  in  the  next,  whereas 
if  it  is  with  his  mother  that  he  has  a  difference  of 
opinion  it  will  be  the  left  leg  which  is  affected,  and 
so  on.    But  in  the  many  lines  of  lives  which  we  have 


328  THE  INNER  LIFE 

examined  in  order  to  study  the  working  of  karma  we 
have  found  no  such  rigidity.  On  the  contrary,  we 
were  especially  struck  no  less  by  the  wonderful  flexi- 
bility of  karma  than  by  its  unerring  certainty.  By 
no  possible  effort  can  the  man  escape  a  single  feather- 
weight of  the  suffering  destined  for  him,  but  he  may 
often  avoid  it  in  one  shape  only  to  find  it  inexorably 
descending  upon  him  in  a  different  form,  from  some 
unsuspected  quarter. 

Just  as  a  debt  of  ten  pounds  can  be  paid  in  a 
single  note,  in  two  smaller  notes,  in  gold  or  silver,  or 
even  in  a  bag-full  of  copper,  so  a  certain  amount  of 
karma  may  come  in  one  terrible  blow,  in  a  number 
of  successive  but  less  severe  blows  of  various  kinds, 
or  even  in  a  long  series  of  comparatively  petty  an- 
noyances ;  but  in  any  and  every  case  the  full  tale  must 
be  paid. 

The  same  sin,  committed  under  the  same  circum- 
stances by  two  exactly  similar  people,  must  result  in 
the  same  amount  of  suffering,  yet  the  kind  of  suffer- 
ing might  be  almost  infinitely  varied,  according  to 
the  requirements  of  the  case.  Take  as  an  example 
one  of  the  very  commonest  of  failings,  and  let  us  think 
what  would  be  the  probable  result  of  selfishness.  This 
is  primarily  a  mental  attitude  or  condition,  so  we 
must  look  for  its  immediate  result  on  the  mental 
plane.  It  is  undoubtedly  an  intensification  of  the 
lower  personality  at  the  expense  of  the  individuality, 
and  one  of  its  results  will  therefore  certainly  be  the 
accentuation  of  that  lower  personality,  so  that  sel- 
fishness tends  to  reproduce  itself  in  aggravated  form, 
and  to  grow  steadily  stronger. 

Thus  more  and  more  of  the  higher  would  be  lost  in 
each  life  through  entanglement  with  the  lower,  and 
persistence  in  this  fault  would  be  a  fatal  bar  to  prog- 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  329 

ress;  for  nature's  severest  penalty  is  always  depriva- 
tion of  the  opportunity  for  progress,  just  as  her 
highest  reward  is  the  offering  of  such  opportunity. 
So  here  we  have  already  a  glimpse  of  the  way  in 
which  selfishness  may  itself  bring  about  its  own  worst 
result,  in  so  hardening  the  man  as  to  make  him  in- 
sensible to  all  good  influences,  and  to  render  his  fur- 
ther progress  impossible  until  he  had  conquered  it. 

There  would  also  be  the  karma  en  the  physical 
plane  of  all  the  unjust  or  unkind  acts  which  the  man's 
selfishness  might  lead  him  to  commit;  but  the  worst 
penalty  that  those  could  bring  upon  him  would  be 
trivial  and  evanescent  beside  the  effect  upon  his  own 
mental  condition.  It  is  possible  that  one  result  might 
be  that  he  would  be  drawn  by  affinity  into  the  society 
of  selfish  people,  and  so  through  suffering  from  this 
vice  in  others  he  would  learn  how  heinous  it  is  in 
himself.  But  the  resources  of  the  law  are  endless, 
and  we  mistake  if  we  imagine  it  as  cramped  down  to 
the  line  of  action  on  which  we  in  our  ignorance  think 
it  ought  to  be  administered. 

A  large  proportion  of  the  man's  suffering  is  what 
Mr.  Sinnett  calls  "ready-money  karma" — that  is  to 
say,  it  is  not  due  to  the  result  of  actions  in  past  lives, 
and  not  in  any  real  sense  necessary  at  all.  But  his 
actions,  in  spite  of  examples  put  before  him  and  ad- 
vice freely  given  to  him,  are  so  foolish,  and  his  igno- 
rance is  so  invincible,  so  apparently  perverse,  that  he 
is  constantly  involving  himself  in  suffering  the  causes 
of  which  are  transparently  obvious  and  readily  evita- 
ble.  I  do  not  think  that  I  exaggerate  when  I  say 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  suffering  of  the  ordinary  man 
is  utterly  unnecessary,  for  it  is  not  the  result  of  the 
distant  past,  but  is  simply  the  outcome  of  the  mis- 
taken action  or  foolish  attitude  of  this  present  life. 


830  THE  INNER  LIFE 

Another  point  to  be  taken  into  account  is  that  man 
in  his  calculations  so  often  fails  to  discriminate  be- 
tween good  and  evil  effects.  The  average  man  re- 
gards death  as  the  greatest  of  all  evils,  either  for  him- 
self or  for  his  friends;  yet  in  many  cases  karma 
grants  it  as  a  reward.  It  is,  indeed,  hardly  ever  an 
evil  or  a  punishment,  but  simply  an  incident — a  kind 
of  move  in  the  game,  inevitable  at  certain  intervals, 
but  at  all  times  available  as  a  temporary  solution  of 
a  diflicult  position  when  it  is  seen  to  be  desirable.  It 
is  rarely  a  matter  of  anything  approaching  the  im- 
portance which  is  commonly  attributed  to  it 

If  we  can  conceive  two  newly-formed  egos  stand- 
ing si/e  by  side,  absolutely  primitive  and  karmaless, 
and  one  of  them  should  kill  the  other,  or,  indeed,  act 
in  any  way  with  regard  to  the  other,  a  result  would 
be  produced  which  would  be,  strictly  speaking,  unde- 
served. I  doubt  whether  any  such  condition  ever 
exists,  for  I  think  that  the  individualised  animal 
brings  over  something  of  karma  into  his  first  human 
birth. 

Many  animals  have  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong, 
or  at  least  a  knowledge  that  some  things  ought  to  be 
done  and  that  others  ought  not  to  be  done ;  and  they 
are  capable  of  feeling  ashamed  when  they  have  done 
what  they  think  to  be  wrong.  They  have  in  many 
cases  a  power  of  choice;  they  can  exercise  (or  not 
exercise)  patience  and  forbearance;  and  where  there 
is  a  power  of  choice  there  must  be  responsibility,  and 
consequently  karma.  The  savage  animal  becomes  a 
savage  and  cruel  man;  the  gentle  and  patient  animal 
becomes  a  gentle  and  kindly  man,  however  primi- 
tive he  may  be.  This  serious  difference  is  clearly  the 
consequence  of  karma  made  in  the  animal  kingdom. 
Such  karma  must  inhere  in  the  group-soul,  but  must 


THE  LAW  OF  EQUILIBRIUM  331 

be  equally  distributed  through  it,  so  that  when  a  por- 
tion breaks  off  as  an  individual,  it  will  carry  within 
it  its  share  of  that  karma. 

It  may  be  said  that  that  only  pushes  our  difficulty 
a  little  farther  back,  for  there  must  be  a  first  step 
sometime,  and  we  must  technically  consider  the  re- 
sult of  that  first  step  as  unjust. 

Not  necessarily.  Let  us  suppose  the  first  step  to 
be  a  fight  between  two  animals.  The  wish  to  kill  or 
wound  would  be  equally  present  in  both;  the  karma 
of  that  wish  would  in  the  case  of  the  vanquished  be 
worked  out  at  once  by  death,  whereas  the  victor  would 
still  owe  a  debt  which  would  probably  be  discharged 
later  by  his  own  death  by  violence.  In  considering 
the  case  of  humanity,  however,  we  need  not  indulge 
in  any  such  speculations. 

We  have  behind  us  a  great  mass  of  accumulated 
energy  of  both  kinds,  desirable  and  undesirable,  and 
I  can  hardly  imagine  any  conceivable  "accident"  that 
would  not  suit  as  an  expression  for  some  part  of  its 
infinite  variety.  Therefore  shipwreck  or  financial 
ruin  does  not  discriminate,  because  it  need  not;  there 
is  always  something  which  can  work  itself  out  in  that 
way  in  the  whole  mass  of  karma  which  lies  behind  an 
ordinary  man.  In  the  rare  cases  where  there  is  noth- 
ing remaining  which  can  so  work  itself  out,  the  man 
cannot  be  injured,  and  is  therefore  what  is  commonly 
called  miraculously  saved. 

Nothing  could  be  more  wildly  absurd  than  the  idea 
that  anything  we  can  do  can  prevent  the  working  out 
of  karma.  For  example,  if  a  child  is  born  under  cir- 
cumstances which  lead  to  its  being  cruelly  treated,  no 
doubt  such  treatment  is  in  accordance  with  its  pre- 
vious karma;  but  if  kindly  intervention  delivers  it 
from  the  demons  in  human  form  who  torment  it,  then 


332  THE  INNER  LIFE 

that  intervention  also  is  in  accordance  with  its  karma. 
If  it  were  not,  then  the  well-intentioned  effort  to  rescue 
it  would  fail,  as  we  know  it  sometimes  does.  Our  ob- 
vious duty  is  to  do  all  the  good  we  can,  and  to  render 
all  the  help  within  our  power  in  every  direction;  and 
we  need  have  no  haunting  fear  that  in  doing  so  we 
are  interfering  with  the  work  of  the  great  karmic 
deities,  who  are  assuredly  perfectly  capable  of  manag- 
ing their  business  with  absolute  exactitude,  whatever 
we  do  or  do  not  do. 

Does  karma  seem  merciless?  If  that  adjective  can 
be  correctly  applied  to  the  working  of  Nature's  laws, 
I  suppose  we  must  admit  that  it  is  so,  just  as  the  law 
of  gravitation  is.  If  a  child  slips  over  the  edge  of  a 
precipice,  no  matter  how  sad  may  be  the  circum- 
stances surrounding  the  slip,  he  usually  falls  to  the 
bottom  of  that  precipice  just  as  effectually  as  would 
an  older  and  more  responsible  person ;  if  a  man  seizes 
a  red-hot  iron  bar,  he  is  equally  burnt  whatever  may 
have  been  his  object  in  seizing  it,  or  whether  he  knew 
that  it  was  hot  or  not  Yet  it  would  hardly  occur  to 
us  to  think  of  the  bar  or  the  precipice  as  merciless, 
or  to  blame  the  law  of  gravitation  or  the  law  of  the 
radiation  of  heat.  Does  not  exactly  the  same  thought 
apply  in  the  case  of  karma? 


The  Method  of  Karma 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  put  into  words  the  appear- 
ance presented  to  clairvoyant  vision  on  the  higher 
planes  by  the  working  of  this  law  of  karma.    It  seems 


THE  METHOD  OF  KARMA  333 

as  though  the  man's  action  built  cells  or  channels 
stored  with  energy,  through  the  reactions  of  which  he 
can  be  reached  by  the  law  of  evolution.  The  appear- 
ance is  as  though  all  sorts  of  forces  are  playing  round 
him,  but  they  are  able  to  influence  him  only  by  acting 
through  these  energies  which  he  has  himself  set  in 
motion.  He  is  continually  adding  to  the  number  of 
these  cells  or  channels  of  energy,  and  so  is  continu- 
ally modifying  the  possibilities  of  reaching  him.  It 
is  in  meeting  and  dealing  with  all  these  kaleidoscopic 
changes,  and  yet  in  spite  of  them  all  getting  in  its 
work  and  accurately  performing  its  task,  that  the 
marvellous  and  all  but  incredible  adaptability  and 
versatility  of  karma  is  exhibited. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  karma  the  consideration 
of  which  I  have  found  helpful  in  the  effort  to  under- 
stand its  working;  but  it  belongs  to  a  plane  so  high 
that  it  is  unfortunately  impossible  to  put  it  clearly 
into  words.  Imagine  that  we  see  each  man  as  though 
he  were  absolutely  alone  in  the  universe,  the  centre 
of  an  incredibly  vast  series  of  concentric  spheres. 
Every  thought,  or  word,  or  action  of  his  sends  out  a 
stream  of  force  which  rushes  towards  the  surfaces 
of  the  spheres.  This  force  strikes  the  interior  surface 
of  one  of  the  spheres,  and,  being  at  right  angles  to  it, 
is  necessarily  reflected  back  unerringly  to  the  point 
from  which  it  came. 

From  which  sphere  it  is  reflected  seems  to  depend 
upon  the  character  of  the  force,  and  this  also  naturally 
regulates  the  time  of  its  return.  The  force  which  is 
generated  by  some  actions  strikes  a  sphere  compara- 
tively near  at  hand,  and  is  reflected  back  very  quickly, 
while  other  forces  rush  on  almost  to  infinity,  and 
return  only  after  many  lives.  But  in  any  case  they 
inevitably  return,  and  they  can  return  nowhere  but 


334  THE  INKER  LIFE 

to  the  centre  from  which  they  came  forth.  Each 
man  makes  his  own  spheres,  and  the  play  of  his 
forces  is  in  no  way  affected  by  the  action  of  those 
sent  up  by  his  neighbor,  for  they  cross  one  another 
without  interfering,  just  as  do  the  rays  of  light  from 
two  lamps.  And  the  medium  through  which  they 
move  is  frictionless,  so  that  the  amount  of  force 
which  returns  is  precisely  that  which  the  man  him- 
self has  generated. 

The  prarabdha  karma  of  an  individual,  that  is,  the 
karma  selected  by  the  authorities  for  him  to  dis- 
charge in  his  present  life,  divides  itself  into  two 
parts.  That  which  is  to  express  itself  in  his  physical 
body  is  made  by  the  Devarajas  into  the  thought-form 
or  elemental  which  builds  the  body,  of  which  we 
have  spoken  in  a  previous  section;  but  the  other  and 
far  larger  block  which  is  to  indicate  his  fate  through 
life,  the  good  or  evil  fortune  which  is  to  come  to  him 
— this  is  made  into  another  thought-form  which 
does  not  descend ;  hovering  over  the  embryo,  it  re- 
mains upon  the  mental  plane.  From  that  level  it 
broods  over  the  man  and  takes  or  makes  opportuni- 
ties to  discharge  itself  by  sections,  sending  down 
from  itself  a  flash  like  lightning  to  strike,  or  a  finger 
to  touch,  sometimes  far  down  on  the  physical  plane, 
sometimes  a  sort  of  extension  which  reaches  only  the 
astral  plane,  and  sometimes  what  we  may  call  a  hori- 
zontal flash  or  finger  upon  the  mental  plane. 

This  elemental  goes  on  discharging  itself  until  it 
is  quite  empty;  and  then,  like  the  other,  it  fades  into 
nothingness,  or  more  correctly  is  disintegrated  and 
returns  to  the  matter  of  the  plane.  The  man  can 
modify  its  action  by  the  new  karma  which  he  is  con- 
stantly making,  by  the  new  causes  which  he  is  per- 
petually setting  up.     The  ordinary  man  has  usually 


THE  METHOD  OF  KARMA  335 

scarcely  will  enough  to  create  any  strong  new  causes, 
and  so  the  elemental  empties  itself  of  its  contents  ac- 
cording to  what  may  be  described  as  its  original  pro- 
gramme, taking  advantage  of  convenient  astrologi- 
cal periods  and  surrounding  circumstances,  which 
make  its  work  easier  or  more  effective;  and  so  the 
horoscope  of  the  man  may  work  out  with  considera- 
ble exactitude.  But  if  the  man  be  sufficiently  de- 
veloped to  possess  a  strong  will,  the  elemental's  action 
is  likely  to  be  much  modified,  and  the  life  will  by  no 
means  follow  the  lines  laid  down  in  the  horoscope. 
Sometimes  the  modifications  introduced  are  such  that 
the  elemental  is  unable  fully  to  discharge  himself  be- 
fore the  time  of  the  man's  death;  and  in  that  case 
whatever  is  left  of  him  is  again  absorbed  into  the 
great  mass  of  the  sanchita  karma — that  which  has 
not  yet  been  worked  out;  and  out  of  that  another 
and  more  or  less  similar  elemental  is  made  ready  for 
the  beginning  of  the  next  physical  life. 

The  great  mass  of  the  accumulated  karma  can  also 
be  seen  hovering  over  the  ego.  Usually  it  is  not  a 
pleasant  sight,  because  by  the  nature  of  things  it  con- 
tains more  evil  than  good  result.  In  the  earlier  days 
of  their  development  in  the  remote  past,  most  men 
have  done  many  things  that  they  should  not  have 
done,  and  thereby  have  laid  up  for  themselves  as  a 
physical  result  a  good  deal  of  suffering  on  this  low- 
est plane.  In  the  present  day  all  civilised  beings  have 
risen  at  least  to  the  level  of  good  intention,  and  con- 
sequently there  is  much  less  of  directly  evil  karma 
being  made  by  such  people.  We  all  do  foolish  things 
at  times ;  we  all  make  mistakes ;  but  still  on  the  whole 
the  average  civilised  being  is  trying  to  do  good  and 
not  harm,  and  therefore  on  the  whole  is  likely  to  be 
making  more  good  karma  than  bad.    But  by  no  means 


336  THE  INNER  LIFE 

all  of  the  good  karma  goes  into  that  great  accumu- 
lated mass,  and  so  we  get  the  impression  in  that  of 
a  preponderance  of  evil  over  good. 

The  result  of  most  good  thoughts  or  good  actions 
is  to  improve  the  man  himself,  to  make  one  or  other 
of  his  bodies  vibrate  in  response  to  higher  forces,  or 
to  bring  out  in  him  qualities  of  courage,  determina- 
tion, affection,  devotion,  which  he  did  not  possess  in 
so  full  a  measure  before.  All  this  effect  then  shows 
in  the  man  himself  and  in  his  vehicles,  but  not  in  the 
mass  of  piled  up  karma  which  is  waiting  for  him. 
If,  however,  he  does  some  good  action  definitely  with 
the  thought  of  its  reward  in  his  mind,  good  karma 
for  that  good  action  will  come  to  him,  and  will  store 
itself  up  with  the  rest  of  the  accumulation  until  such 
time  as  it  may  be  brought  forward  and  materialised 
into  activity.  This  good  karma  naturally  binds  the 
man  to  earth  just  as  effectually  as  evil  karma,  and 
consequently  the  man  who  is  aiming  at  real  progress 
learns  to  do  all  actions  absolutely  without  thought 
of  self  or  of  the  result  of  his  action,  because  if  there 
is  no  thought  of  self,  results  of  the  ordinary  kind 
cannot  touch  him. 

Not  that  the  man  can  escape  the  benefit  of  a  good 
deed,  any  more  than  he  can  escape  the  result  of  an 
evil  deed;  but  if  the  man  thinks  of  the  reward  that 
will  come  to  him  he  will  receive  the  benefit  in  the 
shape  of  that  reward,  whereas  if  he  forgets  himself 
entirely  and  does  this  thing  out  of  the  fulness  of  his 
heart,  because  it  is  the  right  thing  to  do  and  there- 
fore he  can  do  no  other,  then  the  whole  force  of  the 
result  is  spent  in  the  building  of  his  own  character, 
and  nothing  of  it  remains  to  bind  him  to  the  lower 
planes.  The  fact  is  that  in  each  case  the  man  gets 
what  he  wants.    As  the  Christ  said  Himself :    "Verily 


THE  KARMA  OF  DEATH  337 

I  say  unto  you,  they  have  their  reward."  The  man 
who  thinks  of  good  result  to  himself  obtains  that 
good  result;  the  man  who  is  not  thinking  of  himself 
at  all,  or  thinking  only  of  making  himself  a  channel 
for  the  forces  of  the  Logos,  is  made  into  a  better 
channel  as  the  result  of  the  action  which  that  thought 
prompted. 

Another  complication  is  introduced  by  the  fact 
that  many  people  do  good  deeds  in  the  name  of  and 
for  the  sake  of  some  other,  and  in  that  way  they  make 
that  other  a  partaker  with  them  of  the  results.  Many 
a  man  does  a  good  deed  in  the  name  of  the  Christ, 
or  if  he  be  a  Theosophist,  in  that  of  the  Master,  and 
justice  demands  that  in  such  a  case,  since  it  is  the 
thought  of  the  Christ  or  the  Master  which  has  pro- 
duced this  result,  something  of  the  effect  must  go  to 
the  great  person  in  question.  In  this  way  vast  stores 
of  helpful  magnetism  are  constantly  at  the  disposal 
of  those  Great  Ones  to  whom  many  send  thoughts  of 
affection  and  devotion,  in  whose  name  many  kindly 
deeds  are  done.  Naturally  it  would  be  utterly  im- 
possible that  the  result  of  such  action  should  in  any 
way  bind  the  Great  One.  It  simply  provides  him 
with  additional  spiritual  force  for  the  work  which  he 
has  in  hand. 


The  Karma  of  Death 

It  is  by  no  means  certain  that  in  the  majority  of 
cases  a  time  for  death  is  definitely  appointed  by  the 
Lords  of  Karma  at  all.  The  whole  arrangement  is 
far  more  elastic  and  adaptable  than  most  students 


338  THE  INNER  LIFE 

suppose.  The  clue  to  its  comprehension  lies  in  never 
forgetting  that  there  are  three  great  types  of  karma, 
which  the  Indians  call  sanchita,  prarabdha  and  kriya- 
mana. 

The  first  is  the  whole  vast  mass  of  unexhausted 
karma,  good  or  bad,  which  still  waits  to  be  worked 
out;  let  us  call  it  mass-karma.  The  second  is  that 
particular  part  of  the  first  which  has  been  selected 
to  be  worked  out  in  this  incarnation ;  let  us  call  it 
the  man's  destiny  for  this  life.  The  third  is  the  new 
karma  which  we  are  constantly  making  by  our  present 
actions. 

It  is  the  karma  of  the  second  type  that  the  astrolo- 
ger or  the  palmist  tries  to  read;  and  his  calculations 
are  often  invalidated  by  intrusions  from  the  other  two 
varieties.  It  is  quite  certain  that  nothing  can  hap- 
pen to  a  man  which  is  not  in  the  great  mass  of  his 
karma,  but  unquestionably  something  may  happen 
which  was  not  originally  included  in  his  destiny  for 
this  life. 

Suppose  the  case  of  a  man  on  board  a  vessel  which 
is  about  to  be  wrecked,  or  in  the  first  car  of  a  train 
which  is  about  to  come  into  collision.  It  may  or  may 
not  be  in  the  destiny  appointed  for  this  particular  life 
that  that  man  should  die  about  this  time.  If  it  is,  he 
will  no  doubt  be  killed ;  if  it  is  not,  he  may  be  saved, 
if  such  saving  does  not  involve  too  great  an  interfer- 
ence with  the  ordinary  laws  of  nature.  I  think  we 
may  say  that  he  probably  will  be  saved  if  the  pro- 
longation of  his  physical  life  would  appreciably  hasten 
his  evolution.  It  is  intended  that  in  each  life  some 
lesson  should  be  learnt,  some  quality  developed.  If 
that  life-work  is  already  done — or  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  obvious  that  the  man  will  not  succeed  in 
doing  it  this  time,  no  matter  how  long  he  lives — he 


THE  KARMA  OF  DEATH  339 

has  nothing  to  gain  by  continued  physical  life,  and  he 
may  just  as  well  be  delivered  from  it. 

Also,  if  there  be  in  the  vast  mass  of  his  previous 
karma  some  debt  that  can  be  adequately  cancelled  by 
whatever  of  physical  or  mental  suffering  may  be  in- 
volved in  such  a  death,  the  opportunity  of  that  can- 
cellation may  very  well  be  taken  when  it  thus  offers 
itself,  even  though  it  may  not  have  been  included  in 
the  original  plan  for  this  particular  life.  But  if  in 
the  whole  of  the  mass-karma  there  is  nothing  that 
will  fit  in  with  such  a  death,  the  man  simply  cannot 
die  that  way,  and  he  will  inevitably  be  saved,  even 
though  it  be  by  means  which  seem  miraculous.  We 
hear  of  such  cases — cases  in  which  a  huge  beam  has 
fallen  so  as  just  to  save  a  man  from  being  crushed 
by  the  superincumbent  weight  of  the  wreckage,  or  in 
which  when  an  ocean  steamer  has  gone  down  with 
all  hands,  one  man  has  somehow  floated  ashore  on  a 
hen-coop. 

We  must  not  forget  the  influence  on  our  destiny  of 
that  third  variety  of  karma  which  we  are  making 
for  ourselves  every  day.  A  man  may  be  doing  such 
good  work  that  for  the  moment  he  cannot  be  spared; 
he  may  or  he  may  not  have  acted  so  as  to  deserve 
release  from  the  physical  plane  at  that  particular 
period.  Our  tendency  is  to  attach  an  altogether  ex- 
aggerated importance  to  the  time  and  the  manner  of 
our  death.  If  for  a  moment  we  try  to  imagine  how 
the  matter  must  present  itself  to  the  Great  Beings  in 
charge  of  our  evolution,  we  shall  gain  a  much  truer 
appreciation  of  relative  values.  To  them  the  progress 
of  the  egos  in  their  charge  is  the  one  matter  of  im- 
portance. They  know  the  lessons  to  be  learnt,  the 
qualities  to  be  developed. 

They  must  regard  it  much  as  a  schoolmaster  re- 


340  THE  INNER  LIFE 

gards  the  amount  of  work  which  a  boy  has  to  do  be- 
fore qualifying  himself  for  entrance  to  the  univer- 
sity. The  schoolmaster  divides  that  work  according 
to  the  time  at  his  disposal;  so  much  must  be  done  in 
each  year,  and  the  year's  work  in  turn  must  be  sub- 
divided into  terms  and  even  into  days.  But  he  will 
allow  himself  a  considerable  amount  of  latitude  with 
regard  to  these  minor  divisions;  he  may  decide  to  de- 
vote two  days  instead  of  one  to  some  specially  difficult 
point,  or  he  may  close  a  lesson  earlier  than  he  in- 
tended if  its  object  is  clearly  achieved. 

Our  lives  are  exactly  these  days  of  school  life,  and 
the  lesson  may  be  lengthened  or  shortened  as  the 
teacher  sees  to  be  best.  Death  is  merely  the  release 
from  school  at  the  end  of  one  day's  lesson.  We  need 
not  trouble  ourselves  about  it  in  the  least;  we  should 
thankfully  accept  it  whenever  karma  permits  it  to  us. 
We  must  realise  that  the  one  important  thing  is  that 
the  appointed  lesson  should  be  learnt.  The  sections 
into  which  that  lesson  shall  be  divided,  the  length 
of  the  various  lesson-hours,  and  exactly  when  they 
shall  begin  or  end — all  these  are  details  which  we  may 
well  leave  to  the  agents  of  the  Great  Law. 

From  this  point  of  view  no  death  can  be  described 
as  premature,  for  we  may  always  be  absolutely  cer- 
tain that  what  comes  to  us  from  without  is  what  is 
best  for  us.  Our  business  is  to  do  our  very  best  with 
each  life,  and  to  make  every  effort  to  retain  it  as  long 
as  possible.  If  we  ourselves  cut  it  short  by  reckless- 
ness or  improper  living,  we  are  responsible,  and  the 
effect  will  assuredly  be  prejudicial;  but  if  it  is  cut 
short  by  something  entirely  beyond  our  control,  we 
may  be  sure  that  the  curtailment  is  for  our  good. 

Nevertheless  what  has  been  written  in  some  of  our 
books  about  "premature"  death  is  quite  true.     In  ex- 


THE  KARMA  OF  DEATH  341 

treme  old  age  desire  fades  away,  and  so  something 
of  the  work  of  the  astral  life  is  already  done  before 
the  man  leaves  the  physical  plane.  A  similar  result 
is  achieved  by  long  sickness,  and  so  in  either  of  these 
cases  the  astral  life  is  likely  to  be  comparatively  short 
and  without  serious  suffering.  This  may  be  called  the 
ordinary  course  of  nature,  and  it  is  only  by  compari- 
son with  it  that  an  earlier  death  may  be  spoken  of  as 
"premature."  If  a  person  dies  in  youth,  desire  is  still 
strong,  and  therefore  a  stronger  and  more  strenuous 
astral  life  may  be  expected — a  condition  on  the  whole 
less  desirable.  But  if  the  Powers  behind  decided  that 
an  earlier  death  is  best,  we  may  feel  sure  that  They 
know  of  other  considerations  which  outweigh  the  pro- 
longation of  the  astral  life. 

It  seems  probable,  therefore,  that  in  the  majority 
of  cases  the  exact  time  and  manner  of  a  man's  death 
is  not  decided  before  or  at  his  birth.  Astrologers  tell 
us  that  in  many  instances  they  cannot  actually  foretell 
the  death  of  the  subject  whose  horoscope  they  are 
examining.  They  say  that  at  a  certain  time  malefic 
influences  are  strong,  and  the  man  may  die  then,  but 
if  he  does  not,  his  life  will  continue  until  a  certain 
other  occasion  when  evil  aspects  threaten  him,  and  so 
on.  In  the  same  way  a  palmist  will  tell  us  that  at 
such  and  such  points  there  are  serious  breaks  or 
markings  upon  the  life-line;  they  may  indicate  death, 
or  it  may  be  only  serious  illness.  It  is  likely  that  these 
uncertainties  represent  points  which  were  left  open 
for  later  decisions,  depending  largely  upon  the  modi- 
fications introduced  by  the  action  of  the  man  during 
his  life,  and  by  the  use  which  he  makes  of  his  oppor- 
tunities. At  any  rate  we  may  be  well  assured  that 
whatever  decision  is  made  it  will  be  a  wise  one,  and 
that,  whether  in  death  or  in  life,  all  things  are  work- 
ing together  for  our  good. 


342  THE  INNER  LIFE 


Karma  as  an  Educator 

No  man  can  ever  receive  what  he  has  not  earned, 
and  all  things  come  to  us  as  the  result  of  causes  which 
we  ourselves  have  set  in  motion.  If  we  have  caused 
anything  we  have  also  caused  its  result,  for  the  cause 
and  the  effect  are  like  the  two  sides  of  a  coin — we 
cannot  have  one  without  the  other;  indeed,  the  result 
comes  upon  us  as  part  of  our  original  action,  which 
may  be  said  in  this  case  to  be  still  continuing.  Every- 
thing which  comes  to  us  is  our  own  doing,  good  and 
bad  alike;  but  it  is  also  being  employed  definitely  for 
our  good.  The  payment  of  the  debt  is  being  utilised 
to  develope  the  man  who  owes  it,  and  in  paying 
it  he  may  show  patience,  courage,  and  endurance  in 
the  face  of  adverse  circumstances. 

People  constantly  grumble  against  their  circum- 
stances.   A  man  will  say: 

"I  cannot  do  anything,  situated  as  I  am,  with  so 
many  cares,  with  so  much  business,  with  so  large  a 
family.  If  only  I  had  the  liberty  which  so-and-so 
has !" 

The  man  does  not  realise  that  these  very  hin- 
drances are  part  of  his  training,  and  that  they  are 
put  in  his  way  just  in  order  to  teach  him  how  to  deal 
with  them.  He  would  like  no  doubt  to  have  some  op- 
portunity of  showing  off  the  powers  which  he  has 
already  developed,  but  what  is  needed  is  that  he 
should  develope  the  powers  which  he  has  not,  and 
this  means  hard  work  and  suffering,  but  also  rapid 
progress.  There  is  assuredly  no  such  thing  as  pun- 
ishment and  reward,  but  there  is  the  result  of  our 


KARMA  AS  AN  EDUCATOR  343 

actions,  which  may  be  pleasant  or  unpleasant.  If  we 
upset  the  equilibrium  of  nature  in  any  way  it  in- 
evitably readjusts  itself  at  our  expense. 

An  ego  sometimes  chooses  whether  he  will  or  will 
not  take  certain  karma  in  the  present  life,  though 
often  the  brain-mind  may  know  nothing  of  this 
choice,  so  that  the  very  adverse  circumstances  at 
which  a  man  is  grumbling  may  be  exactly  what  he 
has  deliberately  chosen  for  himself  in  order  to  for- 
ward his  evolution.  When  he  is  becoming  a  disciple, 
and  is  therefore  somewhat  out  of  the  stage  of  evolu- 
tion which  is  normal  at  present,  he  often  dominates 
and  largely  changes  his  karma — not  that  he  can  es- 
cape his  share,  or  any  least  portion  of  it,  but  that  he 
gains  much  new  knowledge  and  therefore  sets  in  mo- 
tion new  forces  in  many  directions,  which  naturally 
modify  the  working  of  the  old  ones.  He  plays  off  one 
law  against  another,  thus  neutralising  forces  whose 
results  might  hinder  his  progress. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  the  disciple  who  takes 
steps  to  hasten  his  own  progress  thereby  calls  down 
suffering  upon  himself.  That  is  not  perhaps  quite  the 
best  way  to  put  it.  All  that  he  does  is  to  take  his 
own  evolution  earnestly  in  hand,  and  to  endeavour, 
as  rapidly  as  may  be,  to  eradicate  the  evil  and  de- 
velope  the  good  within  himself,  in  order  that  he  may 
become  ever  a  more  and  more  perfect  living  channel 
of  the  divine  love.  It  is  true  that  such  action  will 
assuredly  attract  the  attention  of  the  great  Lords 
of  Karma,  and  while  Their  response  will  be  to  give 
him  greater  opportunity,  it  may  and  often  does  in- 
volve a  considerable  increase  of  suffering  in  various 
ways. 

But  if  we  think  carefully  we  shall  see  that  this  is 
exactly  what  might  be  expected.    All  of  us  have  more 


344  THE  INNER  LIFE 

or  less  of  evil  karma  behind  us,  and  until  that  is  dis- 
posed of,  it  will  be  a  perpetual  hindrance  to  us  in 
our  higher  work.  One  of  the  earliest  steps  in  the 
direction  of  serious  progress  is  therefore  the  work- 
ing out  of  whatever  of  this  evil  still  remains  to  us, 
and  so  the  first  response  of  the  Great  Ones  to  our 
upward  striving  is  frequently  to  give  us  the  oppor- 
tunity of  paying  off  a  little  more  of  this  debt  (since 
we  have  now  made  ourselves  strong  enough  to  do  it) 
in  order  that  it  may  be  cleared  out  of  the  way  of  our 
future  work.  The  manner  in  which  this  debt  shall 
be  paid  is  a  matter  which  is  entirely  in  Their  hands 
and  not  in  ours;  and  we  can  trust  Them  to  manage 
it  without  inflicting  additional  suffering  upon  others 
— unless  of  course  those  others  have  also  some  out- 
standing karmic  debt  which  can  be  discharged  in  this 
way.  In  any  case  the  great  karmic  deities  cannot 
act  otherwise  than  with  absolute  justice  to  every  per- 
son concerned,  whether  directly  or  remotely. 


Varieties  of  Karma 

The  karma  of  service  done  is  always  the  oppor- 
tunity for  more  service.  This  is  one  of  the  rules 
which  emerge  with  the  greatest  certainty  from  our 
study  of  the  working  of  karma  in  the  many  past  lives 
which  have  been  examined.  When  a  man  leads  a  par- 
ticularly good  life  it  by  no  means  follows  that  in  the 
next  one  he  will  be  rich  or  powerful  or  even  com- 
fortable; but  it  does  absolutely  follow  that  he  will 
have  wider  opportunities  for  work.  Clearly  the 
Logos  wants  His  work  done,  and  if  we  wish  for  op- 


VARIETIES  OF  KARMA  345 

portunities  of  progress  we  must  show  that  we  are 
willing  to  work. 

Knowledge  brings  responsibility,  along  with  op- 
portunity. To  yield  to  what  you  know  to  be  wrong, 
or  to  go  back  a  step  in  order  to  gain  force  for  a  greater 
spring  forward,  is  to  miss  your  opportunity.  Lives 
may  pass  before  you  gain  the  same  opportunity 
again.  If  you  neglect  the  knowledge  or  vision  which 
points  out  to  you  a  fault,  you  will  certainly  be  born 
in  the  next  life  without  that  knowledge  or  vision. 
Knowledge  should  always  be  used;  it  is  a  mistake 
to  think  that  you  can  postpone  your  activity  and  re- 
tain the  knowledge. 

We  may  make  for  ourselves  most  unpleasant 
future  conditions  if  we  choose  to  behave  foolishly,  but 
it  is  practically  impossible  for  us  who  are  now  cul- 
tured people  to  throw  ourselves  back  in  a  future  birth 
into  the  position  of  savages  or  people  of  really  low 
class.  We  may  waste  our  time  and  make  no  progress, 
but  unless  we  actually  take  to  the  practice  of  black 
magic,  and  use  tremendous  power  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion, we  cannot  throw  ourselves  back  as  far  as  that. 
Through  misconduct  or  through  neglect  of  oppor- 
tunities we  may  be  born  in  an  uncomfortable  position 
in  our  own  class,  or  even  in  one  a  little  lower,  but  it 
would  upset  the  scheme  of  things  if  we  could  be 
thrown  back  into  the  savage  state.  Exceptional 
actions  sometimes  produce  exceptional  results,  but  as 
a  general  rule  violent  ups  and  downs  are  not  practi- 
cal; obviously  it  would  be  impossible  for  a  cultured 
man  to  work  out  the  kind  of  karma  which  in  his  po- 
sition he  must  have  made,  if  he  were  thrown  back 
into  the  narrow  conditions  of  an  ignorant  agricul- 
tural labourer.  For  the  plans  of  the  LOGOS  an  ever- 
increasing  number  of  cultured  people  are  needed,  and 


346  THE  IS'XER  LIFE 

therefore  when  once  a  man  is  born  into  a  noble  po- 
sition he  is  on  the  whole  likely  to  continue  to  be  so 
born. 

There  are,  however,  certain  kinds  of  action  which 
bring  unusually  horrible  karma  as  their  results.  For 
example,  the  karma  of  cruelty  of  any  kind,  whether 
to  men  or  to  animals,  is  always  especially  awful  in 
character;  it  often  brings  with  it  chronic  physical  ail- 
ments, accompanied  by  most  acute  sufferings,  and 
often  also  it  produces  insanity — this  last  more  es- 
pecially when  the  cruelty  is  of  a  refined  and  inten- 
tional character.  We  have  found,  for  example,  that 
many  members  of  the  ignorant  mob  who  tortured 
Hypatia  in  Alexandria  have  been  reborn  in  Armenia, 
and  have  themselves  suffered  all  sorts  of  cruelties  at 
the  hands  of  the  Turks.  People  who  are  now,  appar- 
ently by  accident,  burnt  to  death  with  awful  suffer- 
ings are  often  those  who  have  burnt  others  in  the  mid- 
dle ages,  or  looked  on  with  glee  at  those  ghastly  scenes 
of  martyrdom. 

Any  injury  done  to  a  highly  developed  person  re- 
acts terribly  upon  the  doer.  We  should  indeed  be  care- 
ful about  our  attitude  towards  any  Great  One  who 
may  come,  for  He,  being  far  in  advance  of  us,  is 
likely  to  be  misunderstood — to  be  different  from  what 
we  have  expected,  and  therefore  not  to  be  appre- 
ciated. One  reason  why  the  Great  Ones  do  not  more 
often  come  amongst  men  is  that  the  karma  of  mis- 
judging and  ill-using  Them  is  dreadful,  and  the  fools 
among  mankind  are  sure  to  incur  it.  I  have  myself 
seen  a  case  in  which  a  great  soul,  born  where  he  was 
not  understood,  fell  when  young  into  the  hands  of  a 
brutal  and  incompetent  pedagogue  who  shamefully 
abused  him.  I  have  also  been  allowed  to  see  the  karma 
which  will  follow  upon  that  cruelty,  and  I  shudder 


VARIETIES  OF  KARMA  347 

when  I  think  of  it.  Truly  may  it  be  said  of  that  mis- 
erable wretch,  in  the  words  attributed  to  the  Christ, 
that  before  he  had  "offended  one  of  these  little  ones, 
it  had  been  better  for  him  that  a  millstone  had  been 
hanged  about  his  neck,  and  he  had  been  drowned  in 
the  depths  of  the  sea." 

Closely  associated  with  this  is  the  subject  of  the 
karma  of  ingratitude,  which  is  always  exceptionally 
heavy — most  of  all  when  the  ingratitude  is  shown 
to  an  occult  teacher.  People  are  constantly  pressing 
forward,  desiring  to  come  into  touch  with  the  Mas- 
ters, to  attract  Their  attention;  and  they  sometimes 
think  that  the  pupils  of  those  Masters  try  to  hold  them 
back,  or  at  any  rate  decline  to  assist  them  in  their 
efforts  to  approach.  The  pupil  of  the  Masters  exists 
only  to  help  others,  and  nothing  pleases  him  more 
than  to  draw  another  to  the  Feet  where  he  has  learned 
so  much  himself.  But  when  he  sees  from  the  type  of 
the  aspirant  that  he  does  not  yet  understand  those 
Great  Ones,  that  his  attitude  towards  Them  is  cap- 
tious, irreverent,  presumptuous,  he  will  take  no  re- 
sponsibility in  the  matter,  for  he  knows  that  serious 
disaster  is  certain  to  result.  A  man  of  such  tempera- 
ment is  sure  to  make  bad  karma  anywhere;  it  would 
be  foolish  to  put  him  into  a  position  where  he  can 
multiply  it  a  hundredfold. 

For  example,  I  have  noticed  cases  in  which  people 
who  have  been  deeply  devoted  to  our  President  change 
their  minds,  and  begin  to  abuse  and  slander  her.  That 
is  a  wicked  thing,  and  it  makes  far  worse  karma  than 
would  be  the  maligning  of  a  person  to  whom  they 
owed  nothing-  I  do  not  mean  that  people  have  no 
right  to  change  their  minds.  If  a  man  finds  that  he 
can  no  longer  conscientiously  follow  our  President,  he 
has  a  full  right  to  withdraw  himself  from  among  her 


348  THE  INNER  LIFE 

disciples;  we  may  regret  his  blindness,  but  we  have 
no  word  of  blame  for  him,  for  each  man  must  do  what 
he  sees  to  be  right.  For  such  a  departure  there  is  no 
evil  karma  but  that  of  the  loss  of  opportunity — the 
ordinary  result  of  failing  in  a  test  and  making  a 
serious  mistake.  But  if  after  dropping  away  the  man 
begins  venomously  to  attack  her  and  to  circulate  scan- 
dalous falsehoods  against  her,  as  so  many  have  done, 
he  is  committing  a  very  grave  sin,  and  the  karma  of 
his  action  is  exceedingly  heavy.  Yindictiveness  and 
lying  are  always  wicked;  but  when  a  man  directs 
them  against  one  from  whose  hands  he  has  received 
the  cup  of  life,  they  become  a  crime  the  effects  of 
which  are  appalling. 

The  fact  that  a  man  has  a  large  amount  of  bad 
karma  behind  him  makes  anything  like  occult  ad- 
vancement impossible  for  him  until  it  is  worked  off. 
For  example,  those  who  are  deeply  involved  in  kar- 
mic  debts  are  not  likely  to  be  candidates  for  mem- 
bership in  the  community  of  the  sixth  root-race.  No 
one  could  become  an  adept  if  he  had  evil  karma  be- 
hind him,  because  he  must  be  free  from  any  necessity 
for  rebirth.  A  man  who  can  function  freely  in  his 
buddhic  or  rational  vehicle,  and  so  drop  the  causal 
body,  need  never  again  take  up  the  letter;  but  natur- 
ally this  cannot  be  done  until  all  the  karma  of  the 
lower  planes  is  exhausted.  The  Master  sends  out  all 
of  His  forces  in  open  curves;  but  any  lower  thought 
of  self  causes  the  force  sent  out  to  travel  in  a  closed 
curve,  so  that,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad,  it  has  to 
return  to  its  source  and  the  man  must  come  back  to 
receive  it. 

A  man  is  not  free  from  the  binding  results  on 
lower  planes  until  he  is  perfectly  selfless  on  those 
planes.      A    man    who    when    helping    mother    feels 


ANIMAL  KARMA  349 

perfectly  the  unity  with  him,  obtains  the  result  of  his 
action  on  the  rational  plane  only,  and  not  lower  down. 
Do  not  forget  also  that  we  are  making  karma  on  the 
astral  plane,  for  a  man  can  make  karma  wherever 
his  consciousness  is  developed,  or  wherever  he  can 
act  or  choose.  I  have  seen  cases  where  actions  done 
on  the  astral  plane  have  borne  karmic  fruit  in  the 
next  physical  life.  Another  point  to  remember  is 
that  there  is  always  a  general  karma  belonging  to  an 
order  or  a  nation,  and  that  each  individual  in  that 
order  or  that  nation  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  responsi- 
ble for  the  action  of  the  whole.  For  instance,  a  priest 
has  a  certain  responsibility  for  all  that  the  collective 
priesthood  does,  even  though  he  may  not  personally 
approve  of  it. 


Animal  Karma 

Students  often  ask  questions  upon  the  working  of 
karma  in  connection  with  the  animal  kingdom,  saying 
that  since  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  animals  can 
have  made  much  karma  of  any  kind,  it  is  difficult  to 
account  for  the  extreme  differences  to  be  observed  in 
their  conditions — one  being  well  and  kindly  treated, 
while  another  is  subjected  to  all  kinds  of  brutalities, 
one  always  protected  and  well-fed,  while  another  is 
left  to  starve  and  to  fight  for  the  bare  right  of  living. 

There  are  two  points  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  this 
connection:  first,  an  animal  often  does  make  a  goo1, 
deal  of  karma;  second,  the  well-treated  animal  has 
not  always  so  much  advantage  as  he  appears  to  have, 
for  association  with  man   does  not  always  improve 


350  THE  INNER  LIFE 

the  animal  or  tend  to  evolve  it  in  the  right  direction. 
The  sporting  dog  is  taught  by  the  hunter  to  be  far 
more  savage  and  brutal  than  it  could  ever  become  in 
any  form  of  life  that  could  come  to  it  by  nature ;  for 
the  wild  animal  kills  only  to  satisfy  his  hunger,  and 
it  is  only  man  who  introduces  into  animal  life  the 
wickedness  of  killing  for  the  sake  of  the  lust  of  de- 
struction. However  much  his  intelligence  may  be  de- 
veloped, it  would  have  been  far  better  for  this  un- 
fortunate creature  if  he  had  never  come  into  con- 
tact with  humanity;  for  through  him  his  group-soul 
has  now  made  karma — karma  of  the  most  evil  kind, 
for  which  other  dogs  which  are  expressions  of  that 
group-soul  will  have  to  suffer  later  in  order  that 
gradually  the  savagery  may  be  weeded  out. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  lap-dog  who  is  pam- 
pered by  some  foolish  mistress  so  that  he  gradually 
loses  all  the  canine  virtues,  and  becomes  an  embodi- 
ment of  selfishness  and  love  of  ease.  In  both  these 
cases  man  is  criminally  abusing  his  trust  with  re- 
gard to  the  animal  kingdom,  and  is  deliberately  de- 
veloping the  lower  instead  of  the  higher  instincts  in 
the  creatures  committed  to  his  care,  thereby  making 
bad  karma  himself,  and  leading  a  group-soul  to  make 
bad  karma  also.  Man's  duty  towards  the  dog  is 
clearly  to  evolve  in  him  devotion,  affection,  intelli- 
gence and  usefulness,  and  to  repress  kindly  but  firmly 
every  manifestation  of  the  savage  and  cruel  side  of 
his  nature,  which  a  brutalised  humanity  has  for  ages 
so  sedulously  fostered. 

Questioners  sometimes  speak  as  though  they 
thought  that  a  dog  or  a  cat  receives  a  certain  incar- 
nation as  a  reward  of  merit.  We  are  not  as  yet  deal- 
ing with  a  separated  individuality,  and  therefore 
there  is  for  that  particular  animal  no  past  in  which 


ANIMAL  KARMA  351 

individual  karma  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word 
can  have  been  generated — nothing  either  to  merit  or 
to  receive  a  reward.  When  a  particular  block  of  that 
monadic  essence  which  is  evolving  along  the  line  of 
animal  incarnation  which  culminates  in  (let  us  say) 
the  dog,  has  reached  a  fairly  high  level,  the  separate 
animals  which  form  its  manifestation  down  here  are 
brought  into  contact  with  man,  in  order  that  its  evo- 
lution may  receive  the  stimulus  which  that  contact 
alone  can  supply. 

The  block  of  essence  ensouling  that  group  of  dogs 
has  in  the  matter  so  much  of  karma  as  is  involved 
in  having  so  governed  its  manifold  expressions  that 
it  has  been  able  to  reach  the  level  where  such  asso- 
ciation is  possible;  and  each  dog  belonging  to  that 
group-soul  has  his  share  of  the  result.  So  that 
when  people  ask  what  an  individual  dog  can  have 
done  to  merit  a  life  of  ease  or  the  reverse,  they  are 
allowing  themselves  to  be  deceived  by  the  illusion  of 
mere  outward  appearance,  and  forgetting  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  an  individual  dog,  except  during 
the  latter  part  of  that  final  incarnation  in  which  the 
definite  breaking  away  of  a  fresh  soul  from  the  block 
has  occurred. 

Some  of  our  friends  do  not  realise  that  there  may 
be  such  a  thing  as  the  commencement  of  an  entirely 
new  piece  of  karma.  When  an  injury  is  done  by  A 
to  B,  they  always  fall  back  on  the  theory  that  at  some 
previous  time  B  must  have  injured  A,  and  is  now 
simply  reaping  what  he  has  sown.  That  may  be  so 
in  many  cases,  but  such  a  chain  of  causation  must 
begin  somewhere,  and  it  is  quite  as  likely  that  this 
may  be  a  spontaneous  act  of  injustice  on  A's  part,  for 
which  karma  will  assuredly  have  to  repay  him  in  the 
future,  while  B's  suffering,  though  undeserved  as  far 


352  THE  INNER  LIFE 

as  A  is  concerned,  is  the  payment  for  some  other  act 
or  acts  which  he  has  committed  in  the  past  in  con- 
nection with  some  one  else. 

In  the  case  of  the  ill-treatment  of  an  animal  by  a 
man  this  is  certain — that  it  cannot  be  the  result  of 
previous  karma  on  the  part  of  the  particular  animal, 
because  if  it  were  an  individual  capable  of  carrying 
over  karma  it  would  not  have  been  again  incarnated 
in  animal  form. 

But  the  group-soul  of  which  it  is  a  part  must  have 
acquired  karma,  or  the  thing  could  not  happen.  Ani- 
mals do  often  intentionally  cause  each  other  terrible 
suffering.  It  is  reasonably  certain  from  various  con- 
siderations that  the  prey  killed  by  a  wild  beast  for 
food,  in  what  may  be  called  the  natural  necessary 
course  of  business,  does  not  suffer  appreciably;  but 
in  the  unnecessary  and  intentional  fights  which  so 
often  occur  between  animals — bulls,  stags,  dogs  or 
cats,  for  example — great  pain  is  wilfully  inflicted, 
and  that  means  bad  karma  for  the  group-soul,  karma 
that  must  in  the  future  be  paid  by  it  through  some 
of  its  manifestations. 

Not  for  one  moment,  however,  not  by  one  tittle, 
does  that  lesson  the  guilt  of  the  human  beast  who 
treats  the  animal  cruelly,  or  causes  him  to  fight  or 
inflict  pain  on  other  creatures.  Most  emphatically 
there  is  karma,  and  exceedingly  heavy  karma,  stored 
up  for  himself  by  the  man  who  thus  abuses  the  power 
to  help  which  has  been  placed  in  his  hands,  and  in 
many  and  many  a  life  to  come  he  will  suffer  the  just 
result  of  his  abominable  brutality. 

If  one  takes  the  trouble  necessary  to  obtain  a  com- 
plete grasp  of  such  knowledge  as  is  already  available 
in  Theosophical  literature  on  the  subjects  of  karma 
and    of    animal    reincarnation,    the    main    principles 


ANIMAL  KARMA  353 

upon  which  their  laws  work  will  be  found  clear  and 
readily  comprehensible.  I  fully  recognise  how  small 
and  general  such  knowledge  is,  and  I  realise  that 
many  cases  are  constantly  occurring  in  which  the  de- 
tails of  the  method  in  which  the  karma  works  itself 
out  are  entirely  beyond  our  ken;  but  you  may  see 
enough  to  show  you  that  what  we  have  been  taught 
as  to  the  inevitability  and  the  absolute  justice  of  the 
great  law  is  one  of  the  fundamental  truths  of  nature. 
Secure  in  that  certainty,  you  can  afford  to  wait  for 
the  more  detailed  comprehension  until  you  gain  those 
higher  faculties  which  alone  will  give  the  power  to 
see  the  working  of  the  system  as  a  whole. 

Assuredly,  as  we  progress,  the  divine  light  will 
illumine  for  us  many  corners  that  as  yet  remain  in 
shadow,  and  we  shall  gradually  but  surely  grow 
towards  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  divine  truth 
which  even  now  is  enfolding  us,  guarding  and  guid- 
ing us.  All  those  who  have  had  the  privilege  of 
studying  these  subjects  under  the  guidance  and  with 
the  help  of  the  great  Masters  of  the  Wisdom  are  so 
fully  persuaded  of  this  that  even  where  at  present 
they  do  not  see  fully,  they  are  more  than  willing  and 
ready  to  trust  to  that  great  Power  of  which  as  yet 
only  dim  glimpses  can  be  vouchsafed  to  human  eye. 


^iniij  Section 


QH\z  '(HpastfpIjtcaJ  Jitfttsig  mtfr  its  Jfmmfors 


NINTH  SECTION 


What  is  the  Theosophical  Society? 

T  would  appear  that  some  of  its  members 
have  not  quite  comprehended  the  position 
of  this  Theosophical  Society  to  which  they 
belong.  It  is  not  a  Society  which  is 
formed  merely  for  the  promotion  of 
learning  in  some  special  branch,  like  the  Royal 
Asiatic  or  the  Royal  Geographical  Societies;  still  less 
is  it  a  Church,  which  exists  only  to  spread  some  par- 
ticular form  of  doctrine.  It  has  a  place  in  modern 
life  which  is  all  its  own,  for  its  origin  is  unlike  that 
of  any  other  body  at  present  existing.  To  under- 
stand this  origin  we  must  glance  for  a  moment  at  the 
hidden  side  of  the  history  of  the  world. 

All  students  of  occultism  are  aware  that  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  world  is  not  being  left  to  run  its  course 
haphazard,  but  that  its  direction  and  administration 
are  in  the  hands  of  a  great  Hierarchy  of  Adepts, 
sometimes  called  the  White  Brotherhood.  To  that 
Brotherhood  belong  Those  whom  we  name  the  Mas- 
ters, because  They  are  willing  under  certain  con- 
ditions to  accept  as  pupils  those  who  prove  them- 
selves worthy  of  the  honour.  But  not  all  Adepts  are 
Masters ;  not  all  will  take  such  pupils :  many  of  Them, 


358  THE  INNER  LIFE 

though  equal  in  occult  rank,  have  the  whole  of  Their 
time  occupied  in  quite  other  ways,  though  always  for 
the  helping  of  evolution. 

For  the  better  surveillance  and  management  of  the 
field  of  action,  They  have  mapped  out  the  world  into 
districts,  much  as  the  Church  divides  its  territory 
into  parishes  (though  these  are  parishes  of  continen- 
tal size),  and  an  Adept  presides  over  each  of  these 
districts  just  as  a  priest  does  over  his  parish.  But 
sometimes  the  Church  makes  a  special  effort,  not 
connected  specially  with  any  one  of  its  parishes,  but 
intended  for  the  good  of  all;  it  sends  forth  what  is 
called  a  "home  mission,"  with  the  object  of  stirring 
up  faith  and  arousing  enthusiasm  all  over  a  country, 
the  benefits  obtained  being  in  no  way  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal gain  to  the  missioners,  but  going  to  increase 
the  efficiency  of  the  ordinary  parishes. 

In  a  certain  way  the  Theosophical  Society  corre- 
sponds to  such  a  mission,  the  ordinary  religious  di- 
visions of  the  world  being  the  parishes;  for  this  So- 
ciety comes  forth  among  them  all,  not  seeking  to  take 
away  from  any  one  of  them  those  people  who  are 
following  it,  but  striving  to  make  them  understand 
it  and  live  it  better  than  they  ever  did  before,  and  in 
many  cases  giving  back  to  them  on  a  higher  and  more 
intelligent  level  the  faith  in  it  which  they  had  pre- 
viously all  but  lost.  Yes,  and  other  men  too,  who  had 
nominally  no  religion — who,  though  at  heart  of  the 
religious  type,  have  yet  been  unable  to  accept  the 
crudities  of  orthodox  teaching — have  found  in  The- 
osophy  a  presentation  of  the  truth  to  which,  because 
of  its  inherent  reasonableness  and  wide  tolerance, 
they  are  able  heartily  to  subscribe.  We  have  among 
our  members  Hindus,  Buddhists,  Jains,  Parsis,  Jews, 
Muhammadans  and  Christians,  and  no  one  of  them 


WHAT  IS  THE  THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY?        359 

all  has  ever  heard  or  read  from  any  of  the  officials  of 
our  Society  a  word  against  the  religion  to  which  he 
belongs;  indeed,  in  many  cases  the  work  of  the  So- 
ciety has  produced  a  distinct  revival  of  religious  in- 
terest in  places  where  it  has  been  established. 

Why  this  should  be  so  is  readily  comprehensible 
when  we  remember  that  it  is  from  this  same  great 
Brotherhood  that  all  the  religions  of  the  world  have 
their  origin.  In  this  true  though  hidden  government 
of  the  world  there  is  a  department  of  Religious  In- 
struction, and  the  Head  of  that  department  has 
founded  all  the  different  religions  either  personally  or 
through  some  pupil,  suiting  the  teaching  given  in  each 
case  to  the  people  for  whom  it  was  destined,  and  to 
the  period  in  the  world's  history  which  had  then  been 
reached.  They  are  simply  different  presentations  of 
the  same  teaching,  as  may  at  once  be  seen  by  compar- 
ing them.  The  external  forms  vary  considerably,  but 
the  broad  essentials  are  always  the  same.  By  all  the 
same  virtues  are  commended;  by  all  the  same  vices 
are  condemned;  so  that  the  daily  life  of  a  good  Budd- 
hist or  a  good  Hindu  is  practically  identical  with  that 
of  a  good  Christian  or  a  good  Muhammadan.  They 
do  the  same  things,  but  they  call  them  by  different 
names ;  one  spends  much  time  in  prayer,  and  the  other 
in  meditation,  but  really  their  exercises  are  the  same, 
and  they  all  agree  that  the  good  man  must  be  just, 
kindly,  generous  and  true. 

It  is  said  that  some  hundreds  of  years  ago  the  lead- 
ing officials  of  the  Brotherhood  decided  that  once  m 
every  hundred  years,  in  what  to  us  is  the  last  quarter 
of  each  century,  a  special  effort  should  be  made  to 
help  the  world  in  some  way.  Some  of  these  attempts 
can  be  readily  discerned — such,  for  example,  as  the 
movement  initiated  by  Christian  Rosenkreutz  in  the 


360  THE  INNER  LIFE 

fourteenth  century,  simultaneously  with  the  great  re- 
forms in  Northern  Buddhism  introduced  by  Tsong- 
kha-pa;  the  remarkable  renaissance  of  classical  learn- 
ing and  the  introduction  of  printing  into  Europe  in 
the  fifteenth;  the  work  of  Akbar  in  India  in  the  six- 
teenth, at  the  same  time  with  the  publication  of  many 
works  in  England  and  elsewhere  by  Lord  Bacon,  and 
the  splendid  development  of  the  Elizabethan  age;  the 
founding  of  the  Royal  Society,  and  the  scientific  work 
of  Robert  Boyle  and  others  after  the  Restoration  in 
the  seventeenth;  the  activities  in  the  eighteenth  (the 
secret  history  of  which  on  higher  planes  is  known  to 
but  few)  which  escaped  from  control  and  degenerated 
into  the  French  Revolution;  and  in  the  nineteenth 
the  foundation  of  the  Theosophical  Society. 

This  Society  is  one  of  the  great  world-movements, 
destined  to  produce  effects  far  greater  than  any  that 
we  have  yet  seen.  The  history  of  its  work  so  far  is 
but  a  prologue  to  that  which  is  to  come,  and  its  im- 
portance is  out  of  all  proportion  to  what  it  has  hither- 
to appeared  to  be.  It  has  this  difference  from  all 
movements  that  have  preceded  it,  that  it  is  first,  the 
herald  of  the  Coming  Christ,  and  secondly,  the  first 
definite  step  towards  the  founding  of  a  new  root-race. 
Many  of  our  students  are  aware  that  the  Master  M., 
the  great  Adept  to  whom  both  of  our  founders  owe 
special  allegiance,  has  been  selected  to  be  the  Manu 
of  that  race,  and  that  His  inseparable  friend  the 
Master  K.  H.  is  to  be  in  charge  of  its  religious  teach- 
ing. 

It  is  evident  that  in  the  work  which  these  two  Great 
Ones  will  have  to  do  They  will  need  an  army  of  de- 
voted subordinates,  who  must  above  all  things  be  loyal, 
obedient  and  painstaking.  They  may  possess  other 
qualities   also,   but   these   at   least   they   must   have. 


WHAT  IS  THE  THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY?         361 

There  will  be  scope  for  the  keenest  intelligence,  the 
greatest  ingenuity  and  ability  in  every  direction;  but 
all  these  will  be  useless  without  the  capacity  of  in- 
stant obedience  and  utter  trust  in  the  Master.  Self- 
conceit  is  an  absolute  bar  to  progress  in  this  direc- 
tion. The  man  who  can  never  obey  an  order  because 
he  always  thinks  he  knows  better  than  the  authori- 
ties, the  man  who  cannot  sink  his  personality  entirely 
in  the  work  which  is  given  him  to  do,  and  co-operate 
harmoniously  with  his  fellow-workers — such  a  man 
has  no  place  in  the  army  of  the  Manu.  Those  who 
join  it  will  have  to  incarnate  over  and  over  again  in 
rapid  succession  in  the  new  race,  trying  each  time  to 
bring  their  various  bodies  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
model  set  before  them  by  the  Manu — a  very  laborious 
and  trying  piece  of  work,  but  one  that  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  establishment  of  the  new  type  of 
humanity  which  is  required  for  the  race.  The  oppor- 
tunity of  volunteering  for  this  work  is  now  open  to  us. 
Those  who  wish  to  join  in  it  must  begin  to  differ- 
entiate their  aims  from  those  of  the  ordinary  man  of 
the  world.  If  we  are  to  be  selected  for  that  work, 
we  must  show  ourselves  ready  and  willing  by  doing 
this  which  is  now  offered  to  us.  The  great  Head  of 
the  department  of  Religious  Instruction,  the  Lord 
Maitreya,  who  has  already  spoken  as  Krishna  to  the 
Indians  and  as  Christ  to  the  Christians,  has  decided 
soon  to  pay  another  visit  to  the  world  for  the  healing 
and  the  helping  of  the  nations,  and  for  the  revival  of 
spirituality  on  the  earth  which  has  well-nigh  lost  it. 
One  great  work  which  the  Theosophical  Society  has  to 
do  is  to  try  to  prepare  men  for  His  coming,  so  that  more 
may  be  able  to  profit  by  the  unequalled  opportunity 
which  His  presence  will  give.  The  religion  which  He 
founded  when  He  came  down  in  Judaea  two  thousand 


362  THE  INNER  LIFE 

years  ago  has  now  spread  widely  over  the  world;  but 
when,  after  He  left  His  physical  body,  His  followers 
gathered  together  to  discuss  the  situation,  we  are  told 
that  the  number  of  the  names  was  only  a  hundred  and 
twenty.  A  single  preacher  was  His  herald  then;  now 
it  is  a  world-wide  Society  of  twenty  thousand  mem- 
bers. May  we  hope  to  do  a  little  better  this  time — to 
keep  Him  with  us  longer  than  three  years  before  the 
wickedness  of  the  world  drives  Him  away,  to  draw 
round  Him  a  somewhat  larger  body  of  followers  be- 
fore He  leaves  us?  That  is  yet  to  be  seen;  but  it  de- 
pends largely  upon  the  energy,  effort  and  selflessness 
of  members  of  the  Theosophical  Society  now. 

Besides  its  primary  object  of  spreading  occult  truth 
throughout  the  world,  the  Theosophical  Society  has 
also  this  secondary  object — that  it  may  act  as  a  kind 
of  net  to  draw  together  out  of  all  the  world  the  peo- 
ple who  are  sufficiently  interested  in  occultism  to  be 
willing  to  work  for  it.  Out  of  that  number  a  certain 
proportion  will  be  found  who  desire  to  press  on  fur- 
ther, to  learn  all  that  the  Society  has  to  teach,  and 
to  make  real  progress.  Probably  not  all  of  those  will 
succeed,  but  some  certainly  will,  as  some  have  done  in 
the  past;  and  from  those  who  thus  obtain  a  footing 
the  Adepts  Themselves  may  choose  those  whom  They 
consider  worthy  of  the  great  privilege  of  working 
under  Them  in  the  future.  Such  selection  cannot  of 
course  be  guaranteed  to  any  one  who  passes  even  into 
the  innermost  groups  of  the  Society,  since  the  choice 
is  absolutely  in  the  hands  of  the  Masters;  we  can  say 
only  that  such  selections  have  been  made  in  the  past, 
and  that  we  know  that  many  more  volunteers  are  re- 
quired. 

Many  have  joined  the  Society  without  knowing  any- 
thing of  the  inner  opportunities  which  it  offers,  or  the 


WHAT  IS  THE  THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY?         363 

close  relation  with  the  great  Masters  of  Wisdom  into 
which  it  may  bring  its  members.  Many  have  come 
into  it  almost  carelessly,  with  but  little  thought  or 
comprehension  of  the  importance  of  the  step  which 
they  have  taken ;  and  there  have  been  those  who  have 
left  it  equally  carelessly,  just  because  they  have  not 
fully  understood. 

Even  those  have  gained  something,  though  far  less 
than  they  might  have  gained  if  they  had  had  greater 
intelligence.  The  Countess  Wachtmeister  tells  how 
once  when  some  casual  visitors  called  to  see  Madame 
Blavatsky  and  offered  to  join  the  Society,  she  im- 
mediately sent  for  the  necessary  forms  and  admitted 
them.  After  they  had  gone,  the  Countess  seems  to 
have  said  half-remonstratingly  that  not  much  could  be 
expected  from  them,  for  even  she  could  see  that  they 
were  joining  only  from  motives  of  curiosity  or 
courtesy. 

"That  is  true,"  said  Madame  Blavatsky,  "but  even 
this  formal  act  has  given  them  a  small  karmic  link 
with  the  Society,  and  that,  little  as  it  is,  will  mean  at 
least  something  for  them  in  the  future." 

Some  have  committed  the  incredible  folly  of  leaving 
it  because  they  disapproved  of  the  policy  of  its  Presi- 
dent, not  reflecting  first  of  all,  that  that  policy  is  the 
President's  business  and  not  theirs;  secondly,  that  as 
the  President  knows  enormously  more  in  every  di- 
rection than  they  do,  there  is  probably  for  that  policy 
some  exceedingly  good  reason  of  which  they  are  en- 
tirely unaware;  and  thirdly,  that  Presidents  and 
policies  are  after  all  temporary,  and  do  not  on  any 
way  affect  the  great  fundamental  fact  that  the  So- 
ciety belongs  to  the  Masters  and  represents  Them, 
and  that  to  abandon  it  is  to  desert  Their  standard. 
Since  They  stand  behind  it,  and  intend  to  use  it  as  an 


3G4  THE  INNER  LIFE 

instrument,  we  may  be  sure  that  They  will  permit  no 
serious  error.  It  is  surely  not  the  part  of  a  good 
soldier  to  desert  from  the  ranks  because  he  disap- 
proves of  the  plans  of  the  General,  and  to  go  off  and 
fight  single-handed.  Nor  is  such  fighting  likely  to  be 
specially  efficient  or  useful  to  the  cause  which  he  pro- 
fesses to  champion. 

Some  have  deserted  simply  from  a  fear  that  if  they 
remained  in  the  Society  they  might  be  identified  with 
some  idea  of  which  they  disapprove.  This  is  not  only 
selfishness  but  self-conceit ;  what  does  it  matter  what 
is  thought  or  said  of  any  of  us,  so  long  as  the  Master's 
work  is  done  and  the  Master's  plan  carried  out?  We 
must  learn  to  forget  ourselves  and  think  only  of  that 
work.  It  is  true  that  that  work  will  be  done  in  any 
case,  and  that  the  place  of  those  who  refuse  to  do  it 
will  quickly  be  supplied.  So  it  may  be  asked,  what 
do  defections  matter?  They  do  not  matter  to  the 
work,  but  they  matter  very  much  to  the  deserter,  who 
has  thrown  away  an  opportunity  which  may  not  recur 
for  many  incarnations.  Such  action  shows  a  lack  of 
all  sense  of  proportion,  an  utter  ignorance  of  what 
the  Society  really  is  and  of  the  inner  side  of  its  work. 

This  work  which  our  Masters  are  doing,  this  work 
of  the  evolution  of  humanity,  is  the  most  fascinating 
thing  in  the  whole  world.  Sometimes  those  of  us  who 
have  been  able  to  develope  the  faculties  of  the  higher 
planes  have  been  allowed  a  glimpse  of  that  mighty 
scheme — have  witnessed  the  lifting  of  a  tiny  corner  of 
the  veil.  I  know  of  nothing  more  stirring,  more  ab- 
sorbingly interesting.  The  splendour,  the  colossal 
magnitude  of  the  plans  take  away  one's  breath,  yet 
even  more  impressive  is  the  calm  dignity,  the  utter 
certainty  of  it  all.  Not  individuals  only,  but  nations, 
are  the  pieces  in  this  rame;  but  neither  nation  nor 


WHAT  IS  THE  THEOSOPHICAL  SOCIETY?         365 

individual  is  compelled  to  play  any  given  part.  The 
opportunity  to  play  that  part  is  given  to  it  or  to  him; 
if  he  or  it  will  not  take  it,  there  is  invariably  an  under- 
study ready  to  step  in  and  fill  the  gap. 

At  this  present  time  a  magnificent  opportunity  is 
being  offered  to  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  race — to  the 
whole  Teutonic  sub-race,  if  it  will  only  sink  its  petty 
rivalries  and  jealousies  and  take  it.  I  hope  with  all 
my  heart  that  it  will  do  so;  I  believe  that  it  will;  but 
this  I  know,  that  if  unfortunately  it  should  fail,  there 
is  another  nation  already  chosen  to  assume  the  sceptre 
which  in  that  case  would  fall  from  its  hands.  Such 
failure  would  cause  a  slight  delay,  while  the  new  na- 
tion was  being  pushed  rapidly  forward  to  the  neces- 
sary level,  but  at  the  end  of  a  few  centuries  exactly 
the  same  result  would  have  been  achieved.  That  is 
the  one  thing  that  is  utterly  certain — that  the  intended 
end  will  be  achieved;  through  whose  agency  this  will 
be  done  matters  very  much  to  the  agent,  but  nothing 
at  all  to  the  total  progress  of  the  world. 

Let  us  throw  ourselves  into  that  work,  not  out  of 
it,  trying  ever  to  do  more  and  more  of  it,  and  to  do 
it  better  and  better.  For  if  we  do  well  now  in  com- 
paratively small  matters — in  Lodge  activities,  in 
propaganda  work,  in  the  service  of  those  around  us 
— we  may  be  permitted  to  do  something  much  grander 
— to  help  to  smooth  the  way  for  the  coming  of  the 
Lord;  if  we  have  the  glorious  privilege  of  earnestly 
and  humbly  making  ourselves  useful  then,  we  may 
presently  be  entrusted  with  even  greater  responsi- 
bilities in  connection  with  that  new  root-race,  and  of 
us  will  be  true  what  was  said  of  old:  "Well  done, 
good  and  faithful  servant;  thou  hast  been  faithful 
over  a  few  things;  I  will  make  thee  ruler  over  many 
things;  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 


366  THE  IXSER  LIFE 


Theosophy  and  World-Leaders 

A  thoughtful  Theosophist  cannot  but  wonder  some- 
times how  it  is  that  Theosophy,  though  unquestion- 
ably representing  the  most  advanced  theory  of  exist- 
ence and  the  most  complete  statement  of  the  highest 
w'sdom  at  present  available,  yet  does  not  seem  to 
a  peal  at  all  to  many  of  the  most  eminent  leaders  of 
the  world's  thought  and  progress,  whether  it  be  along 
the  lines  of  science,  art,  literature,  philosophy  or  re- 
ligion. These  men  of  the  keenest  intellect,  these 
others  of  the  noblest  spirituality,  surely  they  ought 
to  be  the  very  first  to  welcome  the  splendid  effulgence 
of  Theosophy,  the  clarity  and  common-sense  of  its 
system,  the  light  which  it  throws  upon  all  the  prob- 
lems of  life  and  death,  the  beauty  of  the  ideals  which 
it  puts  before  us.  But  the  fact  remains  that  they  do 
not  welcome  it,  but  on  the  contrary  many  of  them 
treat  it  with  indifference,  or  even  contempt.  Their 
attitude  is  a  remarkable  phenomenon;  how  can  we 
explain  it? 

Again,  as  to  ourselves,  putting  aside  such  an  al- 
together abnormal  person  as  our  President,  we 
know  quite  well  that  we  who  are  Theosophists  are 
in  intellect  far  behind  the  great  leaders  of  scientific 
and  philosophical  thought,  just  as  in  spirituality  and 
devotion  we  are  far  behind  some  of  the  great  saints 
of  whom  we  hear  in  the  various  religions.  Yet  we 
have  the  inestimable  privilege  of  finding  ourselves  in 
the  Theosophical  Society,  we  can  understand,  believe 
and  assimilate  its  teachings,  while  these  others  ap- 
parently cannot.    We  are  clearly  no  better  than  they; 


THEOSOPHY  AXD  WORLD -LEADERS  367 

along  certain  lines  we  are  obviously  less  developed; 
why  should  this  great  and  glorious  reward  come  to 
us  and  not  to  them? 

It  is  a  great  and  glorious  reward;  let  us  make  no 
mistake  as  to  that.  The  strongest  adjectives  in  the 
language,  the  most  poetical  description  that  we  can 
conceive,  would  fail  adequately  to  convey  what  The- 
osophy  is  to  those  who  can  grasp  it,  what  it  does  for 
those  who  put  it  into  practice.  Since  it  does  all  this 
for  us  who  are  commonplace  folk,  why  does  it  leave 
these  much  higher  and  grander  people  cold  and  un- 
moved ? 

They  are  higher  and  grander;  here  is  another 
point  about  which  no  mistake  must  be  made.  The 
intellect  of  the  great  scientific  man  is  a  very  wonder- 
ful and  wholly  desirable  thing,  the  culmination  of 
ages  of  development.  The  spirituality,  the  utter  un- 
worldliness  and  the  deep  devotion  of  the  saint  are 
beautiful  and  precious  beyond  all  words,  and  such 
saintship  comes  only  as  the  crown  of  many  lives  of 
earnest  effort  along  that  special  line.  These  are  in- 
cced  gifts  which  none  can  despise  or  gainsay;  "more 
to  be  desired  are  they  than  gold,  yea,  than  much  fine 
gold;  sweeter  also  than  honey  and  the  honeycomb-" 

Yet  their  possessors  have  not  the  inestimable 
pearl  of  Theosophy,  and  we  have  it — we  who  stand 
on  the  plain,  and  look  up  to  them  on  the  mountain 
heights.  Clearly  these  great  men  have  much  that  we 
have  not — much  at  least  that  in  us  is  as  yet  merely 
rudimentary;  what  have  we  that  they  have  not,  that 
we  are  worthy  of  so  great  an  honour? 

This  is  what  we  have — the  knowledge  of  the  direc- 
tion in  which  to  put  forth  our  forces.  We  have  it 
because  from  the  Theosophical  teaching  we  under- 
stand something  of  the  scheme  of  things,  something 


368  THE  INNER  LIFE 

of  the  plan  upon  which  the  world  is  built,  something 
of  the  object  and  method  of  evolution — and  that  not 
only  in  a  broad  and  general  sense,  but  also  in  suffi- 
cient detail  to  make  it  practically  applicable  to  the 
life  of  the  individual. 

But  why  is  all  this  so  much  clearer  to  us,  the  small 
people,  than  to  these  greater  ones?  By  our  own  doc- 
trine we  know  how  "utter-true  the  faultless  balance 
weighs,"  how  none  can  have  even  the  smallest  bene- 
fit to  which  he  is  not  entitled;  what  have  we  done  to 
merit  this  greatest  of  all  rewards — we  who  are  very 
much  like  thousands  of  other  people,  full  of  ordi- 
nary human  faults,  neither  better  nor  worse  than 
the  great  majority  of  our  fellow-men? 

Whatever  it  is  that  we  have  done,  it  must  evidently 
have  been  in  some  other  life  than  this.  Many  of  us 
can  bear  testimony  that  when  we  first  met  with 
Theosophy  (this  time)  something  within  us  leapt  up 
at  once  in  glad  response  to  its  appeal,  in  eager  recog- 
nition of  kinship  to  its  thought.  Yet  we  all  know 
that  there  are  many  other  better  people  than  we  in 
whom  it  evokes  no  response  whatever — who  cannot 
understand  the  depth  of  our  enthusiasm  for  it. 

We  usually  (and  quite  correctly)  explain  this  by 
saying  that  we  have  met  with  these  glorious  truths 
before;  that  we  have  known  of  and  studied  these 
things  in  a  former  life,  and  that  our  unappreciative 
friends  have  not.  But  that  does  not  solve  the  prob- 
lem; it  only  moves  it  a  stage  further  back.  Why,  in 
that  former  life,  did  we  study  these  things,  while  our 
more  gifted  friends  did  not? 

The  answer  is  that  the  world  is  still  at  an  early 
stage  of  its  evolution,  and  that  man  has  not  yet  had 
time  to  unfold  all  qualities.  He  must  take  them  in 
some  sort  of  order;  he  must  begin  somewhere;  and 


THEOSOPHY  AND  WORLD-LEADERS  369 

men  differ  because  they  have  chosen  different  points 
from  which  to  begin.  We  have  our  qualities  and  our 
powers  (such  as  they  are),  and  our  attraction  to  these 
subjects,  because  it  is  in  that  direction  that  we  have 
been  putting  out  our  every  effort  in  the  far-away 
past.  No  one  possesses  any  quality  that  he  has  not 
worked  to  unfold  within  himself.  So  if  our  greater 
friends  are  "gifted"  in  certain  ways,  it  is  because  they 
have  earned  their  gift  by  hard  work  in  previous  lives. 
Just  as  by  study  in  another  life  we  have  acquired 
our  "gift" — the  power  to  understand  and  appreciate 
something  of  Theosophic  truth — so  have  they  ac- 
quired their  shining  powers  of  intellect  or  devotion 
by  practising  these  qualities  long  ago. 

We  have  taken  different  lines  then,  we  have  spent 
our  time  in  developing  different  qualities.  Now  we 
each  have  what  we  have  earned,  but  naturally  each 
finds  himself  without  those  other  qualities  at  which 
he  has  not  been  specially  working.  We  are  all  im- 
perfect, but  not  all  imperfect  in  the  same  direction. 
Manifestly  we  must  aim  in  the  future  at  an  all-round 
development,  so  that  each  must  acquire  the  qualities 
which  others  now  possess,  but  he  as  yet  does  not. 

Another  very  interesting  point,  which  has  been 
somewhere  well  put  by  our  President,  is  that  the 
great  leaders  of  thought  at  the  present  day  are  ful- 
filling a  certain  function  in  the  world's  evolution 
which  they  could  not  so  well  fill  if  they  knew  all  that 
we  know.  This  is  the  fifth  sub-race  of  the  fifth  root- 
race,  and  the  fullest  possible  unfoldment  of  the  lower 
mind  is  the  task  at  the  moment  set  before  humanity. 
These  leaders  who  intensify  it,  glory  in  it,  almost  wor- 
ship it,  are  doing  the  work  which  they  are  appointed 
to  do  for  the  majority  of  mankind.  It  is  precisely 
because  they  believe  in  intellect  so  thoroughly,   be- 


370  THE  INNER  LIFE 

cause  they  think  that  there  is  nothing  beyond  it,  that 
they  can  so  intensify  it  and  carry  it  to  so  high  a  place. 
It  is  because  they  know  just  so  much,  and  no  more, 
that  they  are  convenient  pawns  to  be  used  in  this  par- 
ticular part  of  the  cosmic  game.  For,  as  Omar 
Khayyam  says: 

"We  are  but  pieces  in  the  game  He  plays 
Upon  this  chequer-board  of  nights  and  days; 
Hither  and  thither  moves,  and  checks,  and  slays, 
And  one  by  one  back  in  the  closet  lays." 

These  great  men  are  the  appointed  leaders  of  a  cer- 
tain stage,  and  they  are  doing  their  work  nobly;  we 
cannot  expect  them  to  turn  aside  from  that  now  to 
listen  to  us  and  our  message.  There  will  come  a  time 
in  the  future  when  they  will  listen,  and  then  the 
magnificent  intellectual  development  which  they  are 
now  acquiring  will  carry  them  far  and  rapidly  along 
the  rc^d  of  occult  progress. 

These  three  things  it  is  clear  that  man  must  have 
before  he  can  hope  to  reach  perfection:  intellect, 
spirituality,  and  discrimination — which  last  quality 
may  in  this  case  be  defined  as  the  knowledge  of  how 
to  use  the  other  two  wisely.  If  any  one  of  these  be 
absent,  the  working  of  the  others  cannot  but  be  to 
some  extent  defective.  We  constantly  see  that  this  is 
so.  The  scientific  man  evolves  intellect  to  a  very  high 
level,  but  if  the  spiritual  side  of  his  nature  is  entirely 
undeveloped  he  may  use  intellect  for  personal  ends 
instead  of  for  the  good  of  all ;  or  he  may  be  unscrupu- 
lous in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  as  is  the  vivisector. 
The  saint  reaches  a  high  level  of  devotion  and  spirit- 
uality, yet  for  lack  of  intellect  he  may  often  make 
himself  ridiculous  by  superstition,  he  may  be  narrow- 
minded,  and  even  a  persecutor.  And  both  the  saint 
and  the  scientist  may  waste  their  energies  in  quite 


THEOSOPHY  AND  WORLD-LEADERS  371 

wrong  directions  for  want  of  a  clear  knowledge  of 
the  great  plan  of  the  Logos — the  very  thing  that 
Theosophy  gives. 

What  a  man  is  now  is  the  consequence  of  what  he 
has  done  and  thought  in  the  past.  If  he  has  devoted 
his  energy  to  the  development  of  intellect — well  and 
good,  he  has  the  intellect  for  which  he  has  worked; 
but,  since  in  addition  to  that  he  needs  spirituality  and 
discrimination,  he  must  now  devote  himself  to  work- 
ing for  the  acquisition  of  those  faculties.  If  he  has 
so  far  spent  his  time  chiefly  in  devotion  he  has  gained 
great  power  in  that  direction,  but  he  must  now  pro- 
ceed to  unfold  those  other  qualities  of  intellect  and 
discrimination  to  which  he  has  not  yet  turned  his  at- 
tention. If  in  previous  lives  he  has  studied  the  great 
scheme  of  things,  he  comes  back  this  time  with  power 
to  comprehend  and  the  intuition  to  accept  the  truth, 
and  that  is  indeed  well  for  him;  but  he  still  needs  to 
unfold  from  within  himself  the  qualities  to  which  the 
other  men  have  been  devoting  themselves. 

Unfortunately  man  at  these  early  stages  of  evo- 
lution is  so  constituted  that  he  is  apt  to  boast  of  what 
he  himself  possesses,  and  to  try  to  exalt  his  own  quali- 
ties by  minimising  those  of  others  instead  of  imitat- 
ing what  is  best  in  them.  So  it  happens  that  the 
saint  and  the  man  of  science  rarely  appreciate  one 
another,  and  not  infrequently  there  is  a  good  deal 
of  mutual  contempt  and  misunderstanding.  It  is  for 
us  to  be  careful  that  we  do  not  allow  ourselves  to  fall 
into  the  same  snare.  Let  us  remember  that  we  set 
before  ourselves  as  a  goal  the  attainment  of  adept- 
ship,  and  that  the  adept  is  the  perfect  man  in  whom 
all  these  different  good  qualities  exist  in  the  highest 
degree. 

Before  we  reach  adeptship  we  have  to  develope  2.1 


372  THE  INNER  LIFE 

much  spirituality  as  the  greatest  of  the  saints,  and 
far  more — as  much  intellect  as  the  most  brilliant  man 
of  science,  and  far  more.  So  our  attitude  towards 
those  who  already  possess  these  most  desirable  attri- 
butes should  be  not  carping  criticism,  but  the  most 
generous  appreciation  and  admiration  of  all  that  is 
good,  while  our  own  quality — that  of  knowledge  of 
the  direction  in  which  evolution  is  moving — will  pre- 
vent us  from  imitating  the  mistakes  in  addition  to 
the  excellencies  of  those  who,  while  far  advanced 
along  other  lines,  are  as  yet  scarcely  even  on  the 
threshold  of  ours. 

All  these  qualities  are  necessary,  and  we  have  much 
hard  work  before  us  to  develope  those  in  which  we 
are  at  present  lacking.  Yet  I  think  we  may  con- 
gratulate ourselves  upon  the  choice  which  we  made 
in  other  lives,  when  we  devoted  ourselves  to  the  study 
of  the  great  scheme  as  a  whole,  to  the  endeavour  to 
understand  the  plan  of  the  Logos,  and  in  our  humble 
way  to  co-operate  with  Him. 

For  that  has  brought  us  (or  should  have  brought 
us)  contentment  with  our  lot,  the  power  to  make  the 
best  of  everything,  and  to  see  the  best  in  everything. 
Most  men  are  eager  to  see  the  worst  in  everybody,  to 
pounce  upon  flaws  in  everything,  to  find  something 
at  which  to  carp  and  cavil.  We  who  are  Theosophists 
should  cultivate  a  spirit  exactly  the  reverse  of  this; 
we  should  see  the  hidden  deity  in  every  one  and  every- 
thing, and  our  eagerness  should  ever  be  to  discover 
in  all  of  them  not  what  is  evil,  but  what  is  good.  If 
these  others  despise  us;  if  the  scientific  man  ridicules 
us  as  superstitious  and  refuses  to  listen  to  our  expla- 
nations; if  the  devotional  person  regards  us  with 
horror  as  unorthodox,  and  insists  on  clinging  to  a  less 
noble  presentation  of  his  deity  than  that  which  we 


REMINISCENCES  378 

8ffer  him;  let  us  on  our  side  take  heed  that  we  do 
not  make  a  corresponding  mistake.  They  have  their 
weak  points,  no  doubt,  and  one  of  them  is  this  preju- 
dice which  renders  them  unable  to  appreciate  the 
truth;  let  us  be  courteous  enough  gracefully  to  ignore 
such  failings,  and  focus  our  attention  upon  the  splen- 
did qualities  in  which  they  really  excel — those  quali- 
ties in  which  we  must  use  our  most  strenuous  en- 
deavour to  imitate  them. 

For  since  we  see  that  the  LOGOS  wills  to  use  in  His 
service  our  intellect  and  our  devotion,  we  have  the 
strongest  conceivable  motive  to  develope  them  as 
rapidly  as  we  can,  and  we  shall  be  saved  much  trouble, 
much  mortification  and  waste  of  energy  by  the  knowl- 
edge which  we  already  have  of  the  direction  in  which 
He  wills  that  these  forces  should  be  employed.  All 
that  we  have  is  from  Him,  and  therefore  all  that  we 
have  we  hold  on  His  behalf  and  at  His  disposal,  to  be 
used  ever  and  only  in  His  service. 


Reminiscences 

I  first  heard  of  Theosophy  through  coming  across 
a  second-hand  copy  of  Mr.  Sinnett's  book  The  Occult 
World,  but  my  first  communication  from  one  of  the 
Masters  was  obtained  in  a  somewhat  unusual  way. 
For  some  years  before  this  I  had  been  engaged  in  the 
investigation  of  spiritualism,  and  in  the  course  of  that 
enquiry  I  had  come  into  contact  with  most  of  the 
prominent  mediums  of  that  day,  and  had  seen  every 
one  of  the  ordinary  phenomena  about  which  one 
reads  in  books  upon  that  subject.    One  medium  with 


374  THE  INNER  LIFE 

when  I  had  much  to  do  was  Mr.  Eglinton;  and  al- 
though I  have  heard  stories  told  against  him,  I  must 
bear  witness  that  in  all  my  own  dealings  with  him 
I  found  him  most  straightforward,  reasonable  and 
courteous. 

One  of  his  specialities  was  slate-writing,  and  I 
found  it  a  very  useful  phenomenon  to  show  to  any 
enquirer  who  adopted  the  sceptical  attitude.  The 
method  was  this.  On  the  way  to  the  seance  I  took 
the  sceptic  into  a  stationer's  shop  and  induced  him  to 
buy  two  new  school  slates,  and  to  have  them  packed 
in  one  parcel  with  a  tiny  crumb  of  slate  pencil  en- 
closed between  them.  I  advised  him  to  assure  him- 
self that  the  parcel  was  securely  tied,  and  to  seal  the 
knots  with  his  own  seal  if  he  had  one.  Then  I  told 
him  to  carry  the  parcel,  and  on  no  account  whatever 
to  let  it  pass  out  of  his  personal  custody  either  be- 
fore or  during  the  seance.  If  during  the  perform- 
ance it  was  necessary  to  sit  with  joined  hands,  I  ad- 
vised him  to  sit  upon  his  parcel.  Thus  the  seance 
commenced,  and  usually  after  a  very  short  time 
there  would  be  raps  or  some  other  indication  that  the 
force  had  gathered. 

We  sat  usually  at  a  small  square  wooden  table 
without  any  cloth  upon  it,  and  Eglinton's  plan  was 
to  take  an  ordinary  slate,  lay  upon  it  a  crumb  of  pen- 
cil and  then  slip  it  under  the  table,  holding  the  slate 
against  the  under  surface  of  the  table.  As  this  was 
in  broad  daylight,  and  we  were  alone  in  the  room  with 
the  medium,  there  was  no  opportunity  for  substitu- 
tion of  previously  prepared  slates,  or  anything  of  that 
sort.  The  slate  being  held  in  this  way,  writing  would 
appear  on  the  surface  which  was  pressed  close 
against  the  table — writing  in  answer  to  any  question 
which  we  chose  to  ask. 


REMINISCENCES  375 

After  this  had  been  going  on  for  some  little  time 
I  asked  insinuatingly  whether  the  kind  spirits  could 
write  on  our  slates.  Nearly  always  the  answer  was 
in  the  affirmative,  though  once  or  twice  I  have  been 
told  that  the  power  was  not  strong  enough.  Then  I 
turned  to  the  sceptic  and  asked  him  to  produce  his 
sealed  package  of  slates,  but  on  no  account  to  allow 
it  to  go  out  of  his  own  hands.  Usually  he  held  it  out 
in  both  his  hands  above  the  table,  and  Mr.  Eglinton 
would  place  one  hand  lightly  upon  the  package. 

Under  those  conditions  I  asked  the  sceptic  to  for- 
mulate a  mental  question,  and  then  while  he  still  held 
the  package  of  slates  we  heard  the  writing  rapidly 
going  on  inside.  When  the  usual  three  little  taps  an- 
nounced that  the  message  was  finished,  I  said  to  the 
sceptic : 

"Now  examine  your  slates  and  your  string,  and 
make  sure  that  no  one  has  thrown  you  into  an  hyp- 
notic trance  and  tampered  with  your  parcel;  then  cut 
it  open  and  read  your  answer." 

Generally  we  found  the  two  sides  of  the  slates 
which  had  been  pressed  together  filled  with  writing 
more  or  less  in  relation  to  the  mental  question  which 
had  been  formulated.  Usually  the  sceptic  was  tre- 
mendously impressed  and  even  dumbfounded  for  the 
time;  but  within  a  week  he  generally  wrote  to  say 
that  of  course  we  had  somehow  or  other  been  deceived, 
and  we  had  not  really  seen  what  we  thought  we  saw. 

Mr.  Eglinton  had  various  so-called  controls — one  a 
Red  Indian  girl  who  called  herself  Daisy,  and  chat- 
tered volubly  whether  opportunity  offered  or  not. 
Another  was  a  tall  Arab,  named  Abdullah,  consider- 
ably over  six  feet,  who  never  said  anything,  but  pro- 
duced remarkable  phenomena,  and  often  exhibited 
feats  showing  great  strength.    I  have  seen  him  simul- 


376  THE  INNER  LIFE 

taneously  lift  two  heavy  men,  one  in  each  hand.  A 
third  control  who  frequently  put  in  an  appearance 
was  Ernest;  he  comparatively  rarely  materialised, 
but  frequently  spoke  with  direct  voice,  and  wrote  a 
characteristic  and  well-educated  hand.  One  day  in 
conversation  with  him  something  was  said  in  refer- 
ence to  the  Masters  of  the  Wisdom;  Ernest  spoke  of 
Them  with  the  most  profound  reverence,  and  said 
that  he  had  on  various  occasions  had  the  privilege  of 
seeing  Them.  I  at  once  enquired  whether  he  was 
prepared  to  take  charge  of  any  message  or  letter  for 
Them,  and  he  said  that  he  would  willingly  do  so,  and 
would  deliver  it  when  opportunity  offered,  but  he 
could  not  say  exactly  when  that  would  be. 

I  may  mention  here  that  in  connection  with  this  I 
had  later  a  good  example  of  the  unreliability  of  all 
such  communications.  Some  considerable  time  after- 
wards some  spiritualist  wrote  to  Light  explaining 
that  there  could  not  possibly  be  such  persons  as  the 
Masters,  because  Ernest  had  positively  told  him  that 
there  were  not.  I  wrote  to  the  same  newspaper  to 
say  that  I  had  it  on  precisely  the  same  valueless  au- 
thority that  there  were  Masters,  and  that  Ernest 
knew  Them  well.  In  each  case  Ernest  had  evidently 
reflected  the  thought  of  the  questioner,  as  such  enti- 
ties so  often  do. 

To  return  to  my  story,  I  at  once  provisionally  ac- 
cepted Ernest's  offer;  I  said  that  I  would  write  a 
letter  to  one  of  these  Great  Masters,  and  would  con- 
fide it  to  him  if  my  friend  and  teacher,  Mr.  Sinnett, 
approved.  At  the  mention  of  this  name  the  "spirits" 
were  much  perturbed;  Daisy  especially  was  very 
angry,  and  declared  that  she  would  have  nothing  to 
do  with  Mr.  Sinnett  under  any  circumstances ;  "Why, 
he  calls  us  spooks!"  she  said,  with  great  indignation. 


REMINISCENCES  377 

However  I  blandly  stuck  to  my  point  that  all  I  knew 
of  Theosophy  had  come  to  me  through  Mr.  Sinnett, 
and  that  I  therefore  did  not  feel  justified  in  going 
behind  his  back  in  any  way,  or  trying  to  find  some 
other  means  of  communication  without  first  consult- 
ing him. 

Finally,  though  with  a  very  bad  grace,  the  spirits 
consented  to  this,  and  the  seance  presently  termi- 
nated. When  Mr.  Eglinton  came  out  of  his  trance,  I 
asked  him  how  I  could  send  a  letter  to  Ernest,  and 
he  said  at  once  that  if  I  would  send  the  letter  to  him 
he  would  put  it  in  a  certain  box  which  hung  against 
the  wall,  from  which  Ernest  would  take  it  when  he 
wished.  I  then  posted  off  to  Mr.  Sinnett,  and  asked 
his  opinion  of  all  this.  He  was  at  once  eagerly  inter- 
ested, and  advised  me  promptly  to  accept  the  offer 
and  see  what  happened. 

Thereupon  I  went  home  and  wrote  three  letters. 
The  first  was  to  the  Master  K.  H.,  telling  Him  with 
all  reverence  that  ever  since  I  had  first  heard  of 
Theosophy  my  one  desire  had  been  to  place  myself 
under  Him  as  a  pupil.  I  told  Him  of  my  circum- 
stances at  the  time,  and  asked  whether  it  was  neces- 
sary that  the  seven  years  of  probation  of  which  I  had 
neard  should  be  passed  in  India.  I  put  this  letter  in 
a  small  envelope  and  sealed  it  carefully  with  my  own 
seal.  Then  I  enclosed  it  in  a  letter  to  Ernest  in  which 
I  reminded  him  of  his  promise,  and  asked  him  to  de- 
liver this  letter  for  me,  and  to  bring  back  an  answer 
if  there  should  be  one.  That  second  letter  I  sealed  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  first,  and  then  I  enclosed  that 
in  turn  with  a  short  note  to  Eglinton,  asking  him  to 
put  it  in  his  box  and  let  me  know  whether  any  notice 
was  taken  of  it.  I  had  asked  a  friend  who  was  stay- 
ing with  me  to  examine  the  seals  of  both  the  letters 


378  THE  INNER   LIFE 

with  a  microscope,  so  that  if  we  should  see  them 
again  we  might  know  whether  any  one  had  been  tam- 
pering with  them.  By  return  of  post  I  received  a 
note  from  Mr.  Eglinton,  saying  that  he  had  duly  put 
the  note  for  Ernest  into  his  box,  and  that  it  had  al- 
ready vanished,  and  further  that  if  any  reply  should 
come  to  him  he  would  at  once  forward  it. 

A  few  days  later  I  received  a  letter  directed  in  a 
hand  which  was  unknown  to  me,  and  on  opening  it 
I  discovered  my  own  letter  to  Ernest  apparently  un- 
opened, the  name  "Ernest"  on  the  envelope  being 
marked  out,  and  my  own  written  underneath  it  in 
pencil.  My  friend  and  I  once  more  examined  the  seal 
with  a  microscope,  and  were  unable  to  detect  any  in- 
dication whatever  that  any  one  had  tampered  with 
the  letter,  and  we  both  agreed  that  it  was  quite  im- 
possible that  it  could  have  been  opened;  yet  on  cut- 
ting it  open  I  discovered  that  the  letter  which  I  had 
written  to  the  Master  had  disappeared.  All  that  I 
found  inside  was  my  own  letter  to  Ernest,  with  a  few 
words  in  the  well-known  hand-writing  of  the  latter 
written  on  its  blank  page,  to  the  effect  that  my  letter 
had  been  duly  handed  to  the  Great  Master,  and  that 
if  in  the  future  I  should  ever  be  thought  worthy  to 
receive  an  answer  Ernest  would  gladly  bring  it  to  me. 

I  waited  for  some  months,  but  no  reply  came,  and 
whenever  I  went  to  Eglinton's  seances  and  happened 
to  encounter  Ernest  I  always  asked  him  when  I  might 
expect  my  answer.  He  invariably  said  that  my  letter 
had  been  duly  delivered,  but  that  nothing  had  yet  been 
said  about  an  answer,  and  that  he  could  do  no  more. 
Six  months  later  I  did  receive  a  reply,  but  not  through 
Ernest,  and  in  it  the  Master  said  that  though  He  had 
not  received  the  letter  (nor,  as  He  remarked,  was  it 
likely  that  He  should,  considering  the  nature  of  the 


REMINISCENCES  3  7  9 

messenger)  He  was  aware  of  what  I  had  written  and 
He  now  proceeded  to  answer  it. 

He  told  me  that  the  seven  years  of  probation  could 
be  passed  anywhere,  but  He  suggested  that  I  might 
come  out  here  for  a  few  months,  to  see  whether  I 
could  work  with  the  Headquarters  staff.  I  wished 
to  say  in  answer  to  this  that  my  circumstances  were 
such  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  come  to 
Adyar  for  three  monhs,  and  then  return  to  the  work 
in  which  I  was  then  engaged;  but  that  I  was  per- 
fectly ready  to  throw  up  that  work  altogether  and 
to  devote  my  life  absolutely  to  His  service.  Ernest 
having  so  conspicuous1^  failed  me,  I  knew  of  no  way 
to  get  this  message  to  the  Master  but  to  take  it  to 
Madame  Blavatsky,  and  as  she  was  to  leave  England 
on  the  following  day  for  India,  I  rushed  up  to  Lon- 
don to  see  her. 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  I  induced  her  to  read 
the  letter,  as  she  said  very  decidedly  that  such  com- 
munications were  intended  only  for  the  recipient.  I 
was  obliged  to  insist,  however,  and  at  last  she  read 
it  and  asked  me  what  I  wished  to  say  in  reply.  I  an- 
swered to  the  above  effect,  and  asked  her  how  this 
information  could  be  conveyed  to  the  Master.  She 
replied  that  He  knew  it  already,  referring  of  course 
to  the  exceedingly  close  relation  in  which  she  stood 
with  Him,  so  that  whatever  was  within  her  con- 
sciousness was  also  within  His  when  He  wished  it. 

She  then  told  me  to  wait  by  her,  and  not  to  leave 
her  on  any  account.  I  waited  patiently  all  through 
the  afternoon  and  evening,  and  even  went  with  her 
quite  late  at  night  to  Mrs.  Oakley's  house,  where  a 
number  of  friends  were  gathered  to  say  farewell 
Madame  Blavatsky  sat  in  an  easy  chair  by  the  fire- 
side, talking  brilliantly  to  those  who  were  present, 


380  THE  INNER  LIFE 

and  rolling  one  of  her  eternal  cigarettes,  when  sud- 
denly her  right  hand  was  jerked  out  towards  the  fire 
in  a  very  peculiar  fashion,  and  lay  palm  upwards. 
She  looked  down  at  it  in  surprise,  as  I  did  myself, 
for  I  was  standing  close  to  her,  leaning  with  an  elbow 
on  the  mantelpiece;  and  several  of  us  saw  quite 
clearly  a  sort  of  whitish  mist  f  jrm  in  the  palm  of 
her  hand  and  then  condense  into  a  piece  of  folded 
paper,  which  she  at  once  handed  to  me,  saying, 
"There  is  your  answer."  Every  one  in  the  room 
crowded  round,  of  course,  but  she  sent  me  away  out- 
side to  read  it,  saying  that  I  must  not  let  anyone  see 
its  contents.  It  told  me  that  my  intuition  of  throw- 
ing up  everything  and  coming  out  here  was  a  right 
one;  that  that  was  what  He  had  wished  me  to  do,  but 
could  not  ask  it  unless  I  offered.  I  was  further  told 
to  take  a  steamer  a  few  days  later  and  to  join 
Madame  Blavatsky  in  Egypt,  which  of  course  I  did. 

In  Cairo  we  took  up  our  quarters  in  the  Hotel 
d'Orient.  Here  it  was  that  I  first  saw  one  of  the 
members  of  the  Brotherhood.  While  sitting  on  the 
floor  at  Madame  Blavatsky's  feet,  sorting  out  some 
papers  for  her,  I  was  startled  to  see  standing  be- 
tween us  a  man  who  had  not  entered  by  the  door. 
It  was  He  who  is  now  the  Master  D.  K.,  though  at 
that  date  He  had  not  taken  the  degree  which  made 
Him  an  adept. 

Our  stay  in  Egypt  with  Madame  Blavatsky  was 
in  many  ways  a  most  remarkable  experience,  as  she 
constantly  told  us  much  of  the  inner  side  of  what  we 
saw  there.  She  had  been  in  Egypt  before,  and  was 
well  acquainted  with  some  of  the  officials,  with  the 
Prime  Minister,  Nubar  Pasha,  with  the  Russian 
Consul,  Monsieur  Hitrovo,  and  especially  with  the 
curator  of  the  museum,   Monsieur   Maspero.     I   re- 


REMINISCENCES  381 

member  particularly  how  we  went  through  the 
museum  with  this  last  gentleman,  and  how  Madame 
Blavatsky  was  able  to  give  him  a  great  mass  of  most 
interesting  information  about  the  various  curiosities 
which  were  under  his  care. 

Madame  Blavatsky  understood  Arabic,  and  she 
used  to  amuse  us  greatly  by  translating  for  our  bene- 
fit the  private  remarks  which  were  being  made  by 
the  grave  and  dignified  Arab  merchants,  as  they  sat 
talking  to  one  another  in  the  bazaar.  After  they  had 
for  some  time  been  calling  us  Christian  dogs,  and 
speaking  disrespectfully  of  our  female  relatives  for 
many  generations,  she  blandly  asked  them  in  their 
own  language  whether  they  thought  that  this  was  the 
way  in  which  a  good  son  of  the  Prophet  should  speak 
of  those  from  whom  he  hoped  to  gain  much  in  the 
way  of  business.  The  men  were  always  covered  with 
confusion,  not  having  expected  that  any  European 
could  possibly  understand  them. 

Arabic,  however,  seems  to  have  been  the  only 
Oriental  language  with  which  she  was  acquainted; 
she  did  not  know  Sanskrit,  and  many  of  the  diffi- 
culties of  our  Theosophical  terminology  arise  from 
the  fact  that  in  those  days  she  would  describe  what 
she  saw  or  knew,  and  then  ask  any  Indian  who  hap- 
pened to  be  near  what  was  the  Sanskrit  name  for  it. 
Very  often  the  gentleman  who  provided  her  with  the 
term  had  not  clearly  understood  what  she  meant; 
and  even  when  he  did,  we  must  remember  that  she 
asked  adherents  of  different  schools  of  philosophy, 
and  that  each  answered  according  to  the  shade  of 
meaning  applied  to  the  term  in  his  teaching. 

Many  curious  phenomena  were  constantly  taking 
place  around  her  at  this  period.  First,  she  was  her- 
self the  most  striking  of  all  the  phenomena,  for  hei 


382  THE  IXXER  LIFE 

changes  were  protean.  Sometimes  the  Masters  Them- 
selves used  her  body,  and  wrote  or  spoke  directly 
through  her.  At  other  times  when  her  ego  was  else- 
where engaged,  one  or  other  of  two  pupils  of  lower 
degree  than  herself  would  take  the  body,  and  there 
were  even  certain  occasions  when  another  woman 
used  to  be  in  charge.  I  have  myself  frequently  seen 
all  these  changes  take  place,  and  I  have  seen  the  new 
man  who  had  entered  the  body  looking  round  to  dis- 
cover the  condition  of  affairs  into  which  he  had 
come — trying  to  take  up  the  thread  of  conversation, 
for  example.  Yet  with  all  this,  she  was  in  no  sense 
of  the  word  like  an  ordinary  medium,  for  the  true 
owner  of  the  body  stood  at  the  back  all  the  time  in 
full  consciousness,  and  thoroughly  understood  what 
was  going  on. 

Extraordinary  phenomena,  howTever,  also  occasion- 
ally occurred.  While  we  were  crossing  the  desert  by 
train  from  Ismailia  to  Cairo  a  letter  fell  in  the  rail- 
way carriage,  referring  to  the  subject-matter  of  the 
conversation  then  proceeding,  and  conveying  by  name 
to  each  one  present  a  kindly  message  of  encourage- 
ment. I  and  another  member  of  the  party  happened 
to  be  looking  up  at  the  time  when  this  letter  came, 
and  we  both  saw  it  appear  in  the  air,  just  in  the  cir- 
cular space  in  tne  roof  of  the  carriage  in  which  a 
lamp  is  usually  put  at  night.  It  came,  just  as  the 
other  had  done,  as  a  vague  ball  of  whitish  mist  which 
condensed  into  a  piece  of  paper  and  fluttered  down. 

I  remember  another  occasion  on  which  she  bought 
in  the  scent-bazaar  at  Cairo  a  tiny  bottle  of  attar  of 
roses,  for  use  in  the  shrine-room  here,  paying  £2  for 
it.  When  we  were  sitting  at  lunch  in  the  hotel  half- 
an-hour  afterwards,  at  a  small  table  reserved  for  our 
party  in  an  alcove,  two  English  sovereigns  fell  out 


REMINISCENCES  383 

of  space  upon  the  table,  and  Madame  Blavatsky  ex- 
plained that  she  had  been  told  she  ought  not  to  spend 
money  upon  Them  in  this  way,  as  we  should  need 
every  shilling  that  we  had  before  we  reached  Adyar — 
a  statement  wnich  certainly  proved  true. 

At  one  time  and  another  I  have  seen  a  good  many 
of  the  phenomena  which  were  so  closely  associated 
with  Madame  Blavatsky.  I  have  seen  her  precipitate 
drawing  and  writing,  and  I  have  also  seen  her  find  a 
missing  object  by  occult  power.  On  several  occa- 
sions I  have  seen  letters  fall  out  of  the  air  in  her 
presence;  and  I  must  also  state  that  I  have  seen  such 
a  letter  fall  here  in  this  house  at  Adyar  when  she 
was  six  thousand  miles  away  in  England,  and  again 
that  I  myself  have  several  times  had  the  privilege 
of  being  employed  by  the  Master  to  deliver  just  such 
letters  after  her  departure  from  the  physical  plane. 

In  those  early  days  of  the  Society  messages  and  in- 
structions from  the  Masters  were  frequent,  and  we 
lived  at  a  level  of  splendid  enthusiasm  which  those 
who  have  joined  since  Madame  Blavatsky's  death  can 
hardly  imagine.  Those  of  us  who  have  had  the  in- 
estimable privilege  of  direct  touch  with  the  Masters 
have  naturally  retained  that  enthusiasm,  but  we  have 
been  unable  under  less  favourable  circumstances  to 
keep  it  up  among  the  rank  and  file  of  the  members. 
Perhaps  now  we  may  be  about  to  witness  a  recrudes- 
cence of  it;  may  we  all  be  worthy  to  take  part  in  the 
glorious  times  that  are  coming! 


384  THE  INNER  LIFE 


Faithful  unto  Death 

Long  ago  in  old  Atlantis,  in  the  great  City  of  the 
Golden  Gate,  there  reigned  a  mighty  King-  One  day 
there  came  to  him  a  soldier  whom  he  had  sent  out  to 
head  an  expedition  against  a  troublesome  tribe  on 
the  borders  of  that  vast  empire.  The  soldier  reported 
victory,  and  as  a  reward  the  King  gave  him  the  po- 
sition of  captain  of  the  Palace  guard,  and  placed 
specially  in  his  charge  the  life  of  his  own  only  son, 
the  heir  apparent  to  his  throne.  Not  long  afterwards 
the  newly-appointed  captain  had  an  opportunity  of 
proving  his  faithfulness  to  his  trust,  for  when  he  was 
alone  with  the  young  Prince  in  the  Palace  gardens 
a  band  of  conspirators  rushed  upon  them  and  tried 
to  assassinate  his  charge. 

The  captain  fought  bravely  against  heavy  odds 
and,  though  mortally  wounded,  succeeded  in  protect- 
ing the  Prince  from  serious  harm  until  help  arrived, 
and  he  and  the  unconscious  Prince  were  borne  to- 
gether into  the  presence  of  the  King.  The  Monarch 
heard  the  story  and,  turning  to  his  dying  captain, 
said: 

"What  can  I  do  for  you  who  have  given  your  life 
for  me?" 

The  captain  replied : 

"Grant  me  to  serve  you  and  your  son  forever  in 
future  lives,  since  now  there  is  the  bond  of  blood 
between  us." 

And  with  a  last  effort  he  dipped  his  finger  in  the 
blood  which  flowed  so  fast  from  his  wounds,  and 
touched  with  it  the  feet  of  his  sovereign  and  the  fore- 


FAITHFUL   UNTO  DEATH  385 

head  of  the  still  unconscious  Prince.  The  King  held 
out  his  hand  in  benediction,  and  replied: 

"By  the  blood  that  has  been  shed  for  me  and  mine, 
I  promise  that  both  you  and  he  shall  serve  me  to  the 
end." 

So  was  the  first  link  forged  between  three  leaders 
of  men  of  whom  we  have  all  heard;  for  that  great 
King  is  now  the  Master  M.,  the  Prince  his  son  has 
been  known  to  us  as  Helena  Petrovna  Blavatsky,  and 
the  Captain  of  the  guard  as  Henry  Steele  Olcott. 
Through  all  the  ages  since,  through  many  strange 
vicissitudes,  the  link  has  been  kept  unbroken  and  the 
service  has  been  rendered,  as  we  know  that  it  will  be 
through  ages  yet  to  come. 

Since  then  as  Gashtasp,  King  of  Persia,  he  pro- 
tected and  assisted  in  the  foundation  of  the  present 
form  of  Zoroastrianism,  and  later  as  the  world-re- 
nowned King  Asoka  he  issued  those  wonderful  edicts 
which  remain  until  this  day  graven  upon  rocks  and 
pillars  in  India  to  show  how  real  were  his  zeal  and 
his  devotion.  And  when,  at  the  end  of  that  long  and 
strenuous  life,  he  looked  back  upon  it  with  sorrow  to 
see  how  far  short  of  his  intentions  even  his  wonder- 
ful achievements  had  fallen,  his  Master  showed  him, 
for  his  encouragement,  two  visions,  one  of  the  past 
and  one  of  the  future.  The  vision  of  the  past  was 
the  scene  in  Atlantis  when  the  link  between  them  was 
forged;  the  vision  of  the  future  showed  his  Master 
as  the  Manu  of  the  Sixth  Root-Race  and  our  Presi- 
dent-Founder as  a  lieutenant  serving  under  Him  in 
the  exalted  work  of  that  high  office.  So  Asoka  died 
content  in  the  certainty  that  the  closest  of  all  earthly 
ties,  that  between  the  Master  and  His  pupil,  would 
never  be  severed. 

Having  thus  taken  a  prominent  part  in  the  spread- 


386  THE  IXXER  LIFE 

ing  of  two  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world,  Zoroas- 
trianism  and  Buddhism,  it  was  appropriate  that  he 
should  be  so  closely  associated  with  the  work  of  this 
great  movement  which  synthesizes  all  religions — the 
Theosophical  Society.  Never  himself  the  spiritual 
teacher,  he  has  always  been  the  practical  organizer 
who  made  the  teacher's  work  possible.  In  his  recent 
life  as  in  all  those  others,  his  ruling  principle  was  al- 
ways that  of  passionate  loyalty  to  the  Master  and  to 
the  work  which  he  had  to  do.  When  first  I  met  him 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  that  was  the 
dominant  feature  in  his  character;  through  all  the 
years  that  I  have  known  him  that  above  all  other  mo- 
tives ruled  his  actions;  it  inspires  the  last  letter  which 
I  received  from  him,  written  only  a  few  weeks  be- 
fore his  death ;  it  has  been  still  his  most  salient 
characteristic  in  the  astral  world  in  which  he  has 
since  been  living. 

If  we  turn  to  the  outward  details  of  this  last  life 
of  his,  we  still  find  the  same  keynote  of  devotion  to 
duty.  The  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  United  States 
Treasury  wrote  to  him  with  regard  to  his  public  work 
for  the  Government : 

"I  wish  to  say  that  I  have  never  met  with  a  gen- 
tleman intrusted  with  important  duties,  of  more  ca- 
pacity, rapidity  and  reliability  than  have  been  ex- 
hibited by  you  throughout.  More  than  all,  I  desire  to 
bear  testimony  to  your  entire  uprightness  and  integ- 
rity of  character,  which  I  am  sure  have  characterized 
your  whole  career,  and  which  to  my  knowledge  have 
never  been  assailed.  That  you  have  thus  escaped 
with  no  stain  upon  your  reputation,  when  we  con- 
sider the  corruption,  audacity  and  power  of  the  many 
villains  in  high  position  whom  you  have  prosecuted 
and  punished,  is  a  tribute  of  which  you  may  well  be 


FAITHFUL  UNTO  DEATH  387 

proud,  and  which  no  other  man  occupying  a  similar 
position  and  performing  similar  services  in  this 
country  has  ever  achieved." 

He  showed  the  same  energy  and  capacity  in  his 
work  for  the  Theosophical  Society.  Few  of  our  mem- 
bers realize  the  extent  and  the  success  of  his  labours, 
for  much  of  what  he  did  can  be  properly  appreciated 
only  by  those  who  have  travelled  in  those  Eastern 
lands  which  he  loved  so  well.  To  his  untiring  exer- 
tion was  due  the  rebuilding  and  enlargement  of  the 
Society's  Headquarters  at  Adyar.  It  was  he  who 
founded  the  great  library  there,  and  on  the  occasion 
of  its  opening  gathered  together  to  bless  its  inception 
priests  of  all  the  leading  religions  of  the  world — the 
first  occasion  in  history  on  which  such  representatives 
had  met  in  fraternal  accord,  each  freely  acknowledg- 
ing the  others  as  standing  on  an  equal  footing  with 
himself. 

To  him  is  due  the  great  movement  for  Buddhist 
education  in  the  island  of  Ceylon,  in  consequence  of 
which  up  to  the  present,  287  Buddhist  schools  have 
been  founded,  in  which  over  35,000  children  are  be- 
ing taught.  He  it  was  who  brought  together  on  a 
common  platform  of  belief  the  Northern  and  South- 
ern Schools  of  Buddhism,  separated  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years;  he  it  was  who  took  up  the  education 
of  the  neglected  pariah  class. 

Many  and  great  were  the  difficulties  in  his  way  in 
holding  together  and  directing  so  complex  a  move- 
ment as  the  Theosophical  Society;  yet  in  every  land 
he  was  always  popular,  by  every  nation  he  was  eagerly 
welcomed.  His  utter  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  the 
Society  and  the  transparent  honesty  of  his  purpose 
could  not  fail  to  impress  all  who  met  him.  I  speak 
of  him  with  feeling,  for  I  had  special  opportunities  of 


388  THE  INNER  LIFE 

knowing  him  well.  I  shall  never  forget  his  fatherly 
kindness  to  me,  when  as  a  comparatively  young  man, 
quite  new  to  Indian  life,  I  first  went  to  reside  at  the 
Headquarters  at  Adyar. 

Since  then  I  have  met  him  in  many  countries;  I 
have  passed  weeks  alone  with  him  (except  for  an  in- 
terpreter and  a  servant)  in  a  bullock-cart  in  the 
jungles  of  Ceylon;  I  went  with  him  on  the  journey 
which  carried  Theosophy  into  Burma  in  1885.  Under 
circumstances  like  these  one  quickly  gets  to  know  a 
man  with  far  greater  intimacy  than  is  afforded  by 
years  of  ordinary  social  life,  and  I  can  unreservedly 
bear  testimony  to  the  whole-souled  devotion  of  the 
man — to  the  fact  that  during  all  this  time  his  one 
anxiety  was  the  furthering  of  the  Theosophical  work, 
his  one  thought  how  to  please  the  Master  by  doing 
with  all  his  might  that  which  had  been  given  him  to  do. 

His  passing  from  among  us  is  too  recent  for  its  de- 
tails to  have  been  forgotten;  we  all  know  how 
courageously  he  bore  his  sufferings,  how  all  through 
his  illness  his  constant  thought  was  still  the  welfare 
of  the  dear  Society  to  which  his  life  had  been  de- 
voted. Y\Te  remember  how  when  the  time  came  for 
him  to  leave  the  body  three  of  the  great  Masters  stood 
beside  him,  as  well  as  his  old  colleague  and  friend, 
H.  P.  Blavatsky;  we  have  all  read  the  magnificent 
speech  of  his  successor  at  his  cremation.  That  cre- 
mation was  a  grand  and  worthy  ceremony.  The  pyre 
was  of  sandalwood  and  his  body  was  covered  with 
the  American  flag  and  the  Buddhist  flag,  the  latter  a 
standard  which  he  himself  had  invented,  bearing  in 
their  right  order  the  special  colours  of  the  aura  of  the 
Lord  Buddha. 

He  was  unconscious  for  a  while  after  death,  but 
soon  became  fully  awake  and  active.    As  I  was  always 


FAITHFUL   UNTO  DEATH  889 

deeply  attached  to  him,  his  Master  told  me  to  act  as 
a  kind  of  guide  to  him  when  necessary,  and  to  explain 
to  him  whatever  he  wished.  He  had  always  been 
keenly  interested  in  the  powers  and  possibilities  of  the 
astral  plane,  and  as  soon  as  he  could  see  it  clearly, 
he  was  full  of  eager  and  insatiable  desire  to  know 
how  everything  is  done,  to  understand  the  rationale 
of  it,  and  to  learn  to  do  it  himself.  He  has  an  un- 
usually strong  will  in  certain  directions,  and  that 
made  many  of  the  experiments  easy  to  him  even  when 
they  were  quite  new.  He  is  most  at  home  in  work 
which  involves  the  use  of  power  in  some  way — to  fight, 
to  cure,  to  defend.  He  is  full  of  big  schemes  for  the 
future,  and  is  just  as  enthusiastic  as  ever  about  the 
Society  which  he  loves. 

His  attention  has  been  attracted  by  the  strong 
thought  about  him  involved  in  writing  this;  he  stands 
beside  me  now,  and  insists  that  I  shall  convey  to  the 
members  his  most  earnest  advice  to  give  whole-hearted 
loyalty  and  support  to  his  noble  successor,  to  put 
aside  at  once  and  forever  all  pitiable  squabbling  over 
personalities,  all  unprofitable  wrangling  over  matters 
which  are  not  their  business  and  which  they  can- 
not be  expected  to  understand,  and  to  turn  their 
attention  to  the  one  and  only  matter  of  importance — 
the  work  which  the  Society  has  to  do  in  the  world. 
His  message  to  them  is:  "Forget  yourselves,  your 
limitations  and  your  prejudices,  and  spread  the  truths 
of  Theosophy." 

Of  his  future  we  can  say  little  as  yet.  By  the  time 
that  these  lines  are  before  the  reader,  it  is  probable 
that  he  will  be  again  in  incarnation.  He  has  earnestly 
wished  this,  in  order  that  he  may  work  along  with 
Madame  Blavatsky  in  her  present  incarnation.  How 
far  his  desire  will  be  granted,  I  cannot  yet  tell.    Cer- 


390  THE  INNER  LIFE 

tainly  he  will  be  employed  wherever  the  Masters 
think  that  he  will  be  most  useful.  His  great  talent 
is  organization,  and  we  have  seen  that  he  has  already 
practised  it  in  Zoroastrianism,  in  the  great  mission- 
ary enterprise  of  Buddhism  and  in  the  foundation  of 
the  Theosophical  Society.  No  doubt  he  may  have 
similar  work  to  do  in  connection  with  the  next  great 
religion,  and  again  at  the  establishment  of  the  Sixth 
Root-Race.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  great  man  whom 
in  his  last  life  we  knew  as  Henry  Steele  Olcott  will  be 
ready  to  bear  his  part  in  all  such  activities,  to  lead 
us  as  he  led  us  before,  devoted  as  ever  to  the  service 
of  his  Master,  faithful  r.s  ever  through  life  and 
through  death. 


A  Course  of  Study  in  Theosophy 

It  is  desirable  that  one  who  wishes  to  study  Theo- 
sophy thoroughly  should  acquaint  himself  in  the 
course  of  time  with  the  whole  of  Theosophical  litera- 
ture. This  is  no  light  task;  and  the  order  in  which 
the  books  are  taken  is  of  importance  if  a  man  wishes 
to  get  out  of  them  the  best  that  he  can.  But  at  the 
same  time  it  must  be  remembered  that  no  order  can 
be  prescribed  which  will  be  equally  suitable  for 
every  one;  there  are  those  who  can  usefully  absorb 
information  only  along  devotional  lines,  and  there  are 
those  who  must  have  a  scientific  and  non-emotional 
presentation  of  the  truth.  The  best  thing  that  I  can 
do,  therefore,  is  to  prescribe  such  a  plan  of  reading 
as  I  have  found  to  be  on  the  whole  most  generailv  use- 
ful, leaving  room  for  considerable  variation  to  suit  in- 
dividual idiosyncrasies. 


A  COURSE  OF  STUDY  IN  THEOSOPHY  391 

It  seems  to  me  of  great  importance  to  have  a  clear 
outline  of  the  whole  scheme  thoroughly  in  the  mind 
before  endeavouring  to  fill  in  the  details.  No  one 
can  know  how  strong  is  the  evidence  for  any  one  part 
of  the  Theosophical  teaching  until  he  knows  the  whole 
of  that  teaching,  and  sees  how  each  separate  portion 
is  confirmed  and  strengthened  by  the  rest,  and  is  in- 
deed a  necessary  part  of  the  scheme  as  a  whole.  My 
advice,  therefore,  is  that  the  beginner  should  read 
first  the  elementary  literature,  not  troubling  himself 
unduly  with  details,  but  seeking  rather  to  take  in  and 
assimilate  the  broad  ideas  contained  in  it,  so  as  to  see 
all  that  they  imply  and  to  realise  them  as  facts  in 
nature,  thereby  putting  himself  into  what  may  be 
called  the  Theosophical  attitude,  and  learning  to  look 
at  everything  from  the  Theosophical  point  of  view. 

To  this  end  the  student  may  take  An  Outline  of 
Theosophy,  The  Riddle  of  Life,  Hints  to  Young  Stu- 
dents of  Occultism,  and  various  lectures  by  Mrs. 
Besant  and  myself  which  have  been  issued  as  propa- 
ganda pamphlets.  When  he  feels  himself  fairly  cer- 
tain of  these,  I  should  recommend  next  Mrs.  Besant's 
Popidar  Lectures  on  Theosophy  and  then  her  Ancient 
Wisdom,  which  will  give  him  a  clear  idea  of  the  sys- 
tem as  a  whole.  Another  book  which  might  be  useful 
to  him  at  this  stage  is  Some  Glimpses  of  Occultism. 
He  can  then  proceed  to  follow  details  along  whichever 
line  most  commends  itself  to  him. 

If  he  is  interested  chiefly  in  the  ethical  side,  the 
best  books  are:  At  the  Feet  of  the  Master,  Light  on 
the  Path,  The  Voice  of  the  Silence,  The  Path  of  Dis^ 
cipleship,  In  the  Outer  Court,  The  Laivs  of  the  Higher 
Life,  The  Three  Paths  and  DJiarma,  and  The  Bhaga- 
vad-Gita. 

One  who  wishes  to  study  the  life  after  death  will 


392  THE  INNER  LIFE 

find  what  he  wants  in:  The  Other  Side  of  Death, 
The  Astral  Plane,  Death  and  After,  The  Devacfianic 
Plane. 

If  he  is  approaching  the  matter  from  the  scien- 
tific side,  the  following  books  will  suit  him:  Esoteric 
Budaliism,  Nature's  Mysteries,  Scientific  Corrobora- 
tions of  Theosophy,  Occidt  Chemistry  and  The  Physics 
of  the  Secret  Doctrine. 

If  he  cares  for  the  study  of  comparative  religion 
he  should  read:  Universal  Text-book  of  Religion  and 
Morals,  Four  Great  Religions,  The  Great  Law,  The 
Bhagavad-Gita,  Hints  on  the  Study  of  the  Bhagavad- 
Gita,  The  Upanishads,  The  Wisdom  of  the  Upanis- 
hads,  An  Advanced  Text-book  of  Hindu  Religion  and 
Ethics,  The  Light  of  Asia,  A  Buddhist  Catechism, 
Buddhist  Popular  Lectures  and  The  Religious  Prob- 
lem in  India. 

If  he  thinks  chiefly  of  the  Christian  presentation 
of  these  truths,  the  best  books  are:  Esoteric  Christi- 
anity, The  Christian  Creed,  Fragments  of  a  Faith 
Forgotten,  The  Perfect  Way. 

If  one  wishes  to  investigate  the  origin  and  early 
history  of  Christianity,  in  addition  to  the  books  on 
the  subject  already  mentioned,  Mr.  Mead's  works 
will  specially  appeal  to  him:  Did  Jesus  Live  B.  C. 
100?  The  Gospel  and  the  Gospels,  Orpheus  and 
Plotinus. 

The  student  who  is  interested  in  applying  Theo- 
sophy to  the  world  of  modern  thought,  and  to  politi- 
cal and  social  questions,  may  profitably  turn  to; 
The  Changing  World,  Some  Problems  of  Life,  Theo- 
sophy and  Human  Life,  Occidt  Essays  and  Theosophy 
and  the  New  Psychology. 

If,  as  is  the  case  with  most  enquirers,  his  main 
interest  centres  round  the  wider  knowledge  and  the 


A  COURSE  OF  STUDY  IN  THEOSOPHY  393 

grasp  of  life  resulting  from  a  study  of  occultism,  he 
should  read,  in  addition  to  many  of  the  books  men- 
tioned above:  A  Study  in  Consciousness,  An  Intro- 
duction to  Yoga,  Clairvoyance,  Dreams,  Invisible 
Helpers,  Man  Visible  and  Invisible,  Thought-Forms, 
The  Evolution  of  Life  and  Form,  Thought-Poiver — 
Its  Control  and  Culture,  The  Other  Side  of  Death  and 
the  two  volumes  of  The  Inner  Life. 

It  will  be  desirable  that  he  should  comprehend  the 
subjects  dealt  with  in  the  manuals  on  Reincarnation, 
Karma,  and  Man  and  his  Bodies.  Indeed,  these 
should  be  taken  at  an  early  stage  of  his  reading. 

The  earnest  student,  who  intends  to  live  Theosophy, 
as  well  as  merely  to  study  it  intellectually,  should 
also  have  knowledge  of  the  inner  purpose  of  the 
Theosophical  Society.  He  will  gain  this  from  Mrs. 
Besant's  London  Lectures  of  1907  and  The  Changing 
World,  from  The  Inner  Life  (2  vols.),  as  well  as  from 
the  study  of  Colonel  Olcott's  Old  Diary  Leaves,  and 
Mr.  Sinnett's  Occidt  World  and  Incidents  in  the  Life 
of  Madame  Blavatsky. 

I  myself  think  that  the  greatest  book  of  all,  Madame 
Blavatsky's  Secret  Doctrine,  should  be  left  until  all 
these  others  have  been  thoroughly  assimilated,  for 
the  man  who  comes  to  it  thus  thoroughly  prepared 
will  gain  from  it* far  more  than  is  otherwise  possi- 
ble. I  know  that  many  students  prefer  to  take  it  at 
an  earlier  stage,  but  it  seems  to  me  more  an  encyclo- 
paedia or  book  of  reference. 

Four  books  which  are  now  in  preparation  should 
be  added  to  the  above  list  as  soon  as  they  appear:  A 
Text-book  of  Theosophy,  which  endeavours  to  state 
the  Theosophical  teaching  in  the  simplest  possible 
form,  and  without  technical  terms;  The  Hidden  Side 
of  Things,  which  shows  how  knowledge  of  occultism 


394  THE  INNER  LIFE 

changes  our  view  with  regard  to  all  sorts  of  small 
practical  matters  in  every-day  life;  Man;  Whence, 
How,  Whither?  which  gives  a  detailed  account  of 
the  past  evolution  of  man,  and  shows  something  of 
the  future  which  lies  before  him;  First  Principles  of 
Theosophy,  which  is  to  approach  the  whole  subject 
from  the  scientific  standpoint,  and  to  present  it  from 
an  entirely  new  point  of  view. 

The  course  I  have  indicated  above  means  some 
years  of  hard  reading  for  the  ordinary  man,  but  one 
who  has  achieved  it  and  tries  to  put  into  practice 
what  he  has  learnt  will  certainly  be  in  a  position  to 
afford  much  help  to  his  fellow-men. 


<3lnh£t 


INDEX 


A. 


Accident,  death  by  10,  12;  saved  in 
an  339. 

Accumulated  karma  335. 

Action  of  thought  on  physical  matter 
104. 

Adepts,  Hierarchy  of  357. 

Advantages  of  cremation  15,  16. 

Advice  from  the  dead,  105. 

Adyar  109,  167,  170,  171,  379,  387, 
388. 

Aeonian  suspension  198. 

Affection,  importance  of,  317;  influ- 
ence  of,   52. 

Akbar,  360. 

Alcyone,  lives  of,  41,  152,  254. 

Ambition,  individualisation  through, 
260. 

Ancient  Wisdom,  The  177. 

Angels  165. 

Anglo-Saxons  266,  269;  opportunity 
of  the  365. 

Animal  Karma  349-353. 

Animal  Obsession  20-30. 

Animals,  Individualised  30. 

Animal-men,  lunar  213,  218,  316. 

Animal,  20;  thought  of  an,  205. 

Animals,  classes  among  205;  indi- 
vidualisation of  203,  251;  karma 
of,  330-331,  349;  seven  types  of, 
255. 

Apparition,  an  unpractised,  133;  of 
dead  person  132. 

Appearance  of  a  Master,  380;  of 
devas,  165. 

Archetypal  world,  225. 


Argument,  unnecessary  102. 

Arhat,  the  166. 

Arithmetic,  Atlantean,  273-274. 

Artificial  elemental  113. 

Aryan  sub-races  313. 

Asoka,  King  385. 

Asteroids,  the  189. 

Astral  activity,  evidence  of  63;  cog 
nition,  31;  conditions,  10,  16  e 
seq. ;  counterparts  32-33;  entangle 
ment  123;  experiences,  remember 
ing,  71;  forgetfulness  70;  help  60 
imprisonment  22 ;  interpenetratioi 
9;  keynote,  the  139;  matter,  rear 
rangement  of  31,  34-35,  66;  pleas 
ures,  77;  slum  work,  25;  speech,  66 

Astral  body,  building  of  13;  cease 
less  motion  of,  93;  how  it  i: 
affected,  13;  of  ordinary  man,  47 
senses  of  the  5-6,  31-32,  142. 

Astral  Experience,  Rememberin< 
71-79. 

Astral  life,  37,  58;  continuity  of,  58 
karma  during,  44;  length  of,  13. 

Astral  work,  16,  64;  for  anyone,  65. 

Astral  world,  fear  in  the  75;  karmj 
in  the  348-349;  location  in,  31,  34 
no  sleep  in  76;  unconsciousness  11 
62. 

Astrology  and  death  341. 

Asymmetry  of  mental  body  92. 

Atlantean  arithmetic  273-274. 

Atlanteans,  the  273. 

Atom,  the  167,  178-179;  movement; 
of  the  178;  permanent  299. 

Atoms,  evolution  of  229. 

At  the  Feet  of  the  Master  154. 


398 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


Attitude  of  mind  after  death  14. 

Attracting  the  ego  96-97. 

Augoeides,  the  name  or  chord  of  the 

141-142. 
Aura,  colors  of  the  166;  distortion  of 

the  170;   expansion  of  167;   human 

form   inside    168;    of   a   book,   135; 

of  a  country,  156;  of  a  baby,  295; 

size  of  the  169. 
Aura  (The)  of  the  Deva  165-171. 
Author,  the  mind  of  136. 


B. 


Bringing  Over  Past  Knowledge  SOS- 
SOS. 

Brotherhood,  the  Great  White  357. 

Bubbles  in  Koilon  175. 

Buddha,  the  Lord  307. 

Buddhic  faculties,  use  of  149. 

Buddhist  education  387. 

Building-elemental  296,  300  et  seq. 

Building  of  astral  body  14;   of  solar 
system  175-184. 

Building  (The)  of  the  System  175- 
184. 

C. 


Baby,  aura  of  295. 

Babylon,  captivity  in  272. 

Bacon,  Lord  360. 

Barhishads,  the  215. 

Beliefs,  savage  28. 

Besant,  Mrs.,  quoted,  20. 

Biblical  scenes,  thought-forms  of,  112. 

Birth,  return  to  290  et  seq. 

Birth,  The  Return  To  290-305. 

Blavatsky,  Madame  379,  385,  388;  in 
Egypt,  380. 

Bliss  of  heaven  life,  48. 

Blue  men,   244. 

Boat-load,  golden  258;  orange  243, 
253;  rose  258. 

Bodhisattva,  the  263. 

Bodies  are  veils,  37;  higher,  growth 
of   167. 

Body,  a  misfit,  304;  causal,  180;  men- 
tal, 87. 

Body,  The  Mental  87-97. 

^ook,  aura  of  a  134. 

Book  of  the  Dead,  The  274. 

Books,  forthcoming,  393;  library, 
135;  on  Theosophy,  390;  sectarian, 
136. 

Bourgeoisie,  218,  315. 

Boyle,  Robert  360. 


Cancelling  of  Karma  339. 

Captain,    story    of   the   faithful,   384- 

385. 
Captious  students  318. 
Captivity  in  Babylon,  272. 
Case  of  individualisation,  205. 
Causal    body,    180;    microscope,    138; 

visions,  313. 
Cause  of  headache,  122-123. 
Ceaseless  motion  of  astral  body,  93. 
Centre    between    the    eyebrows,    137- 

138. 
Centres,  mental,   of  infection,  94;   of 

thought,  107-112. 
Centres,  Thought-  107-112. 
Certainty  of  justice  353. 
Chain,  distribution  at  end  of  202. 
Chains,     incarnation     of     185,     192; 

planetary  184-190. 
Chain,  The  Earth  224-249. 
Chains,  The  Planetary  184-190. 
Changes  of  personality,  382. 
Character    indicated    in    mental    body 

90-92. 
Characteristics,    Personal   305-306. 
Child,  still-born  302. 
Children  after  death,  12;  clairvoyant 

130. 


INDEX 


399 


Choice  by  the  ego  343. 

Chord  of  the  Augoeides  142;  the  mys- 
tic, 138-145. 

Chord,  The  Mystic  138-145. 

Christ,  the  coming  264,  360. 

Christian  Creed,  The  191,  251. 

Clairvoyance  126-138. 

Clairvoyance  152;  dangers  of,  126- 
128;  may  be  learnt  117;  uses  of 
129-130. 

Clairvoyant  children   130. 

Class,  the  lower  middle  218,  315;  the 
upper  middle  216,  315. 

Classes  among  animals  205;  incar- 
nation in  345;  working  219. 

Climate  of  Mars  277. 

Cognition,  astral  31. 

Collective  karma  352;  thought-forms 
109-110. 

Colours  in  mental  body  87-90;  of  the 
aura  166. 

Coming  Christ  or  Teacher,  the  264, 
361. 

Communication  through  a  medium  6; 
with  heaven  37-38. 

Conditions  After  Death  16-20. 

Conditions,  Heaven-Life  37-43. 

Conditions,  astral  10-16;  during  first 
round  227  et  seq.;  in  interstellar 
space  180;  of  the  heaven  life  37, 
40,  50. 

Connection  between  ego  and  mind  96. 

Consciousness,  continuous  47,  157; 
flash  of  causal  45;  on  sub-planes 
33;   simultaneous  34. 

Consequences  of  suicide  9. 

Continuity  of  astral  life  58. 

Continuous  consciousness  47,  157. 

Control  of  thought  103. 
Corpse,  disposal  of  13. 
Corpse-eater,  the  27. 
Counterparts,  astral  32-33. 


Country,  aura  of  155-156. 

Course  (A)  Of  Study  In  Theosophy 

391-394. 
Craters,  lunar  183. 
Creation  by  thought  162. 
Cremation,  advantages  of  15,  16. 
Criminals  habitual  220. 
Cruelty,  karma  of  346,  352. 
Crustacean,  a  mental  94. 
Cure  for  drunkenness  124. 
Cure,  mental  122. 


D. 


Dangers  of  clairvoyance  126-127; 
limited  view  155;  mediumship  120; 
personal  bias  154. 

Darwinian  theories  234. 

Dates,  determination  of  152;  verifi- 
cation of  224-225. 

Dead,  advice  from,  105-106;  man, 
what  he  knows,  5,  7,  8;  person,  ap- 
parition of  132-133;  what  they  see 
60. 

Dead  (Relation  of  the)  To  Earth 
5-16. 

Death  and  astrology  341;  as  regarded 
by  Lipika  337-338;  attitude  of 
mind  after  14;  by  accident  10,  12; 
children  after  12;  help  at  time  of 
60;  language  after  66;  materialist 
after  42-43;  not  foreordained  341; 
premature  340 ;  sudden  11 ;  Theo- 
sophy after  59,  69;  the  psychic 
after  4;  the  worldly  man  after  7, 
18-19;  what  happens  at  23. 

Death,  Conditions  After  16-20. 

Death,  Faithful  Unto  384-391. 

Death,  The  Karma  of  337-341. 

Death,  The  Theosophist  After  3-5. 

Degrees  of  individualisation  255. 

Democracy,  Turanian  275. 


400 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


Department    of    religious    instruction 

359,  361. 
Depression,  why  it  is  wrong  103. 
Desirability  of  a  long  life  340. 
Desire,  the  wearing  out  of  18. 
Destinies,   different  313. 
Destiny,   human   161;   moulding   159; 

of  a  man  339. 
Determination  of  dates  152. 
Devarajas  292,  297. 
Devas,    the    165;    appearance    of   the 

265;  Irish,  169;  musical  69. 
Deva,  The  Aura  of  the  165-171. 
Diagram  of  life  waves  210;  of  monads 

from  the  moon  212. 
Differece  between  astral  and  physical 

worlds  17. 
Differences  of  temperament  154. 
Different  destinies  313. 
Dimension,  the  fourth  83. 
Dimensions,  The  Higher  80-84. 
Direct  action  of  thought  97-98. 
Disciple,  the  343. 
Disease  is  inharmony  123. 
Disposal  of  corpse  13. 
Dissatisfaction,  sublime  324. 
Distance,  finding  people  at  a  138,  144- 

145. 
Distinguished  people  216,  314-315. 
Distortion   of   aura    170;    of   memory 

72. 
Distribution  at  the  end  of  chain  202. 
Dog,    lap    350;    man's    duty    towards 

350;   sporting  350. 
Dogmas  in  Theosophy,  no  158. 
Double,  etheric  120. 
Doubt,  the  fetter  of  158. 
Drama,  the  astral  counterpart  of  a  8. 
Dramatisation  by  the  Ego  73. 
Dream  house,  story  of  the  157. 
Drunkard    after    death    5;    obsession 

by  5. 


Drunkards  316. 
Drunkenness,  cure  for  124. 

E. 

Earth  chain,  regents  of  the  292. 

Earth-Chain,  The  224-249. 

Easter  Island  244. 

Education,  Buddhist  387;  pariah  387. 

Educative  karma  342. 

Educator,  Karma  As  An  342-344. 

Effect  of  grief  upon  the  dead  7;  of 
popularity  51;  of  thought  on  emo- 
tion 99. 

Eglinton,  Mr.  374-378. 

Ego  and  mind,  connection  between  96; 
attracting  the  ego  97;  choice  by 
343;  dramatisation  by  73;  life  of 
46;  reflected  in  personality  250; 
symbolism  of  72,  108;  the  triple, 
141. 

Eighth  sphere,  the  184. 

Electrons  179. 

Elemental,  artificial  113;  the  building 
296,301-303;  the  mental  68. 

Elemental  essence,  evolution  of  114. 

Elemental  Essence,  Thought  and 
112-114. 

Elopement,  story  of  the  73-74. 

Emanations,  physical  131. 

Embryology  300. 

Emmerich,  Anne  Catherine  110-112. 

Emotion  affected  by  thought  99; 
products  131. 

Entanglement,  astral  123. 

Equilibrium,  The  Law  of  321-332. 

Ernest  376-379. 

Error,  sources  of  possible  154. 

Esoteric  Buddhism  309. 

Essence,  Thought  and  Elemental 
112-114. 

Etheric  double  120;  fog  24-25. 


INDEX 


401 


Evidence  of  astral  activity  63-64. 

Evil  of  grumbling  101. 

Evolution  of  atoms  229;  of  elemental 

essence  113;  a  lower  189;  table  of 

192. 
Excitement,  avoid  60. 
Exercise,  a  useful  99. 
Expansion  of  the  aura  166. 
Explosion,  story  of  the  72. 
Extraordinary   phenomena  381-382. 
Eyebrows,  centre  between  137-138. 


capitulation  on  222,  244. 
Freedom  by  selflessness,  348. 
Free  will,  fragmentary   160. 
French  Revolution,  the  360. 
Friends,  how  to  think  of  101. 
Friendship  in  the  heaven  world  37-38; 

reasons  for  37. 
Function  of  intellectual  man  369. 
Fund  of  karma,  general  326. 
Future,  Foreseeing  The  158-162. 
Future,  men  of  the  239. 


F. 


G. 


Faculties,  use  of  buddhic  149;  psychic 

95,  117,  133;  psychic,  how  to  obtain 

117-118. 
Failures  of  the  fifth  round  198. 
Faithful  Unto  Death  384-391. 
Family  pride  313. 
Fear,   individualisation   through   260; 

on  the  astral  plane  75,  76. 
Fetter  of  doubt,  the   158. 
Fifth  round,  failures  of  198. 
Finding  people  at  a  distance  138,  144. 
'Firbolgs,  the  264. 
Fire,  introduction  of  240. 
First    round,   conditions    during   229; 

man  in  230. 
Flash  of  causal  consciousness  45. 
Flexibility    of    intervals,    226-228;    of 

karma  328. 
Fog,  the  etheric  24-25. 
Force  of  habit,  98;  Responsibility  for 

use  of,  125. 
Foreseeing  The  Future  158-162. 
Forger,  story  of  innocent  125. 
Forgetfulness,  astral  70. 
Formation     of     mayavirupa     68;     of 

physical  body,  296. 
Forthcoming  books  393-394. 
Fourth  dimension,  the  82;   globe,  re- 


Gashtasp,  King  385. 

Gates,  Professor,  quoted  131. 

Germ,  the  physical  299. 

Goal  of  humanity  195. 

God,  a  tribal  272. 

Golden  boat-load  258. 

Good  action,  result  of  336. 

Gossip,  wickedness  of  100. 

Grey  world,  the  24-25. 

Great  White  Brotherhood,  the  357. 

Grief,  effect  of  7. 

Groups  of  workers,  254. 

Group   soul,  the   208;   karma   of  351- 

352;  number  in  255. 
Growth  of  higher  body,  166-167. 
Grumbling,  evil  of  101. 


H. 


Habit,  force  of  98. 

Habitual  criminals  220. 

Hastening  of  karma,  41-42. 

Headache,  cause  of  122. 

Heaven,      communication      with      39; 

conscious  action   in  40;   materialist 

in  42. 
Heaven  life,  bliss  of  48. 
Heaven-Life  Conditions  37-43. 


402 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


Heaven  Life,  Karma  in  the  43-53. 

Heavenly  Man,  the  261,  263. 

Heaven  world,  friendship  in  38;  in- 
fluences from  50. 

Help  at  time  of  death  60;  in  thought 
106-107. 

Helper,  qualification  of  62,  360-361. 

Helpers,  Invisible  57-71. 

Hierarchy  of  adepts  357. 

Higher   (The)    Dimensions  80-84. 

High  thought,  reason  for  114. 

Hindrances  are  training  342. 

Historical  scenes,  thought-forms  of 
111. 

Houses  on  Mars  278. 

How  Past  Lives  Are  Seen  145-150. 

How  to  help  astrally  61. 

Human  destiny  161;  form  inside  aura 
168. 

Humanity,  goal  of  198;  moulds  of 
221-229,   242. 

Human  Life,  Three  Laws  of  289- 
290. 

Hydrogen  179. 

Hypatia  346. 


Ideas,    how   they    arise    109;    psycho- 

metrisation  of  135. 
Identification  of  character  150. 
Illusion  as  to  physical  world  8. 
Images,  concrete,  in  mental  body  90. 
Imitations,  terrestrial  248. 
Importance   of   affection   317-318. 
Imprisonment,  astral  22. 
Impulse,  Intuition  and  105-106. 
Impurity  127. 
Incarnation  in  classes,  345;  of  chains, 

185,  192;  sex  in  314. 
Individualisation,  a  case  of  205;   de- 


grees of  255;  of  animals  205,  253; 

premature    257;    through    ambition 

261;  through  fear  260. 
Individualisation,  Modes  of  249-261. 
Individualised  Animals  30. 
Influences  from  heaven  world  50;   of 

affection    52;    of    our    thoughts    on 

others  99. 
Ingratitude,  karma  of  347. 
Inhabitants,  Mars  and  Its  275-285. 
Ir.harmony  is  disease  123. 
Initiation,  153. 
Injuries,  small  326. 
Injuring  a  Great  One  346-347. 
Inner  round,  the  207,  233,  276. 
Instrument  of  karma,  296. 
Intellectual  man,  function  of  369. 
Intelligible  world  227. 
Interpenetration  of  astral  objects  9. 
Interstellar  space,  conditions  in  180. 
Intervals  between  lives  248,  153,  308; 

flexibility  of,  254. 
Intervals     (The)     Between     Lives 

308-318. 
Introduction  of  fire,  240. 
Intuitional  man,  the  95. 
Intuition  and  Impulse  105-106. 
Investigation,  labour  of  153. 
Invisible  Helpers  57-71. 
Invisible  Helpers  19. 
Invisible  helpers,  work  of  the,  19,  25, 

36. 
Invocations,   repetition   of   119. 
Irish  devas,  169;  race  264. 


Jewish  race,  270-273. 
Judgment,  the  last  198. 
Jupiter  189. 
Justice,  certainty  of  353. 


INDEX 


403 


K. 


Karma,  accumulated  335-336;  a  new 
piece  of  351;  cancelling  of  339; 
collective,  349;  during  astral  life, 
44;  during  sleep  47-48;  educative 
342;  flexibility  of  328;  general  fund 
of  326;  hastening  of  41;  how  it 
may  be  paid  328,  344;  instrument 
of,  296;  Lords  of  292;  mass,  338; 
modification  of  298,  334-335;  not 
merciless  332;  of  animals  330-331; 
of  being  burnt  346;  of  cruelty  346, 
3-~2;  of  group-soul  351-352;  of  in- 
gratitude 347;  of  injuring  a  Great 
One  348-347;  of  selfishness  328-329; 
of  service  344;  on  the  astral  plane 
349;  prarabdha  334;  racial  269; 
"ready-money"  329;  three  kinds  of 
338;   unpreventable  331. 

K.'.rma,  Animal  349-353. 

Karma  As  An  Educator  342-344. 

Karma  in  the  Heaven  Life  43-53. 

Karma  (The)  of  Death  337-311. 

Karma,  The  Method  of  332-337. 

Karma,  Varieties  of  344-349. 

Karmic  spheres,  the  334. 

Keynote,  the  astral  139. 

Key  to  Theosophy,  The  42. 

Killing  out  desire  19-20. 

Kindnesses,  small  326. 

King  Asoka  385. 

King   Gashtasp   385. 

Knowledge,  Bringing  Over  Past  306- 
308. 

Koilon,  175;  bubbles  in  176. 

Kumara,  Sanat  247. 

L. 

Labour  of  investigation  153. 
Labourers,  unskilled  316. 


Language   aftci-   death,   GG;    on    . 
278. 

Lap-dog,  the  350. 

Last  judgment,  the  198. 

Law  (The)  of  Equilibrium  321-332. 

Laws  (Three)  of  Human  Life  289- 
290. 

Lemurians,  the  244. 

Length  of  astral  life  13. 

Letter,  materialisation  of  380,  382, 
383. 

Levitation,  124. 

Library  books,  135. 

Life,  astral  37,  58;  desirability  of 
long,  340;  of  ego  46-47. 

Life-waves,  diagram  of  210. 

Life-Waves,  Successive  190-211. 

Light,  a  letter  to  376. 

Limited  view,  danger  of  155. 

Link,  necessity  of  144. 

Lipika,  292;  death  as  regarded  by, 
339. 

Lives  are  school-days,  340;  identifica- 
tion of  characters  in  150;  intervals 
between  248,  253,  308;  of  Alcyone 
41,  152,  254. 

Livrs  (How  Past)  Are  Seen  145-1"8. 

Lives,  The  Intervals  Between  SOS- 
SIS. 

Localisation  of  States  31-36. 

Location  on  astral  plane  31-35. 

Logoi,  Planetary,  The  262,  290-291. 

Logos,  Planetary,  The  192,  225- 
226;  staff  of  the  194;  the  plan  of 
the  160;  the  solar  291. 

London  Lodge,  Transaction  of  211. 

Lord  Buddha,  the  307. 

Lord  Maitreya,  the  361. 
Lords    of    Karma    292;    of    the    Dark 
Face  259;    of  the   Flame   222.   245- 
246;  work  of  247-248;  of  the  Moon 
213,  215,  240,  242,  310-311. 


404 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


Lost  souls  200. 

Lower  evolution,  a  187;  middle  class, 
the  218,  315-316. 

Lunacy  22-23. 

Lunar  animal-men  213,  218,  318;  cra- 
ters, 183;  successes  214, 


M. 


Magician,  an  oriental  29. 

Magnification  137. 

Mahamanvantara  192. 

Maitreya,  the  Lord  361. 

Man,  the  Heavenly  261,  263. 

Man   in   the   first  round   230;    second 

round  235;  third  round  236. 
Man,  qualities  of  368. 
Man's  duty  towards  dog    350. 
Manu,  the  191-192,  226,  248,  263,  270, 

360-361,  385. 
Manuscript,  reading  a  135. 
Manvantara,  a  192. 
Man  Visible  and  Invisible  87,  90,  94, 

166,  251. 
Man:    Whence,    How    and    Whither? 

249,  394. 
Mars  188-189,  208,  222,  228,  239,  275; 

climate    of    277;     houses    on    278; 

language  on,  278;  secret  society  on 

282-283. 
Mars  and  Its  Inhabitants  275-285. 
Mass  karma  338. 
Master,  appearance  of  a  380;  a  letter 

to  the  377;  a  reply  from  the  378. 
Masters    and    pupils    40,    360-361;    of 

the  Wisdom,  150,  215,  305-306,  326- 

327;  the  work  of  the  364. 
Materialisation   121;   of  a  letter  380, 

382,  383. 
Materialist     after     death     42-43;     in 

heaven  42-43. 
Matter-of-fact  man  95. 


Matter  through  matter,  passage  of 
83. 

Mayavirupa,  formation  of  67-68. 

Medium,  a  physical  119;  communica- 
tion through  6-7. 

Mediumship  119;  dangers  of  120-121. 

Memories,  the  two  147. 

Memory,  distortion  of  72;  revival  of 
307. 

Men,  blue  244;  of  the  future  239; 
professional  216,  315. 

Mental  body,  asymmetry  in  92; 
character  indicated  in  90-91; 
colours  in  87-89;  concrete  images 
in  90;  striations  in  90. 

Mental  centres  of  infection  94;  crus- 
taceans 93;  cure  122;  elemental, 
the  69;  shell,  the  51;  unit,  the  88, 
294;  warts  94;  windows  48. 

Mental  (The)  Body  87-97. 

Mercury  207,  228,  284. 

Mesmerism,  undesirability   of   132. 

Message  from  Colonel  Olcott  389. 

Method  of  karma  335. 

Methods  of  magnification  137. 

Method  (The)  of  Karma  332-337. 

Microscope,   a  causal   138. 

Milesians,  the  265,  266,  268,  269;  the 
spell  of  268. 

Mind  of  an  author  136;  Mindless,  sin 
of  the,  244. 

Misfit  body,  a  305. 

Modes  of  Individualisation  249-261. 

Modification  of  karma  298,  334. 

Monad,  the  triple  142. 

Monads  (The)  From  The  Moon 
211-223. 

Monsters  22. 

Moon-animals   219,   316. 

Moon-men  212,  214,  218,  248,  311,  315. 

Moon,  the  181;  Lords  of  the  213,  215, 
240,  242,  310. 


INDEX 


405 


Moon,  The  Monads  From  The  211- 

223. 
Mother,  the  thought  of  a  303. 
Moulding  destiny   159. 
Moulds  of  humanity  221,  229,  242. 
Movements  of  the  atom  178. 
Mystic   (The)   Chord  138-145. 
Musical   devas   69. 
Myst-'cal  thought  95. 


N. 


Name  of  the  Augoeides  141-142;   the 

true  140. 
Nature   spirits   169-172. 
Nebular  stage  of  solar  system  182. 
Necessity  of  link  144. 
Neglected   (A)   Power  97-104. 
Neptune   186,  190. 
Nirmanakaya,  reservoir  of  the  52. 
Notes  (Stray)   On  Races  264-275. 
Number  in  group-soul  255. 


O. 


Obsession,  Animal  20-30. 

Occult  Chemistry,  177,  178. 

Cccult  division  of  world  358. 

Occult   World,   The  373. 

Olcott,  Colonel,  cremation  of  388;  in 
Atlantis  384;  in  India  385;  in 
Persia  385;  message  from  389;  re- 
birth of  389;  testimonial  to  386; 
work  of  387. 

Omar  Khayyam  quoted  370. 

Opportunities,  small,  bring  greater 
365. 

Orange  boat-load  243,  258-259. 

Ordinary  man,  astral  body  of,  47. 

Oriental  magician,  an  29. 

Origin  of  wheat  247. 


Palmistry  341. 

Parents,  why  chosen  296. 

Pariah  education  387. 

Passage  of  matter  through  matter  83. 

Past  Knowledge,  Bringing  Over  306- 
308. 

Past  lives,  how  they  are  seen  145. 

Path,  those  approaching  the  312. 

Paths,  the  seven  194. 

Payment  of  karma  328,  344. 

Peasants,  English  and  Irish  266  et 
seq. 

Pedigree  of  Man,  The  213. 

People,  distinguished  216,  314-315. 

Permanent  atom,  the  299;  thought- 
forms  109. 

Personal  bias,  danger  of  154. 

Personal    Characteristics    305-306. 

Personality,  changes  of  381-382;  re- 
flection of  ego  250. 

Phenomena,  extraordinary  382;  pol- 
tergeist, 8. 

Physical  body,  formation  of  296;  ema- 
nations 131;  germ  299;  matter, 
action  of  thought  on  104;  medium, 
a  119-120;  world,  illusions  as  to  8. 

Pigmies  244. 

Plan  of  the  Logos,  160. 

Planetary,  Logos  192,  225-226;  Logoi 
262,  290. 

Planetary  (The)   Chains  184-190. 

Planets,  seed  upon  206,  231. 

Plato  315. 

Power,  A  Neglected  97-104. 

Power,  of  unselfishness  53. 

Powers,  Psychic  117-126. 

Powers,  psychic    (see  Faculties). 

Poltergeist  phenomena  8. 

Popularity,  effect  of  51 


408 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


Poseidonis,  date  of  sinking  152. 

Prarabdha  karma  334. 

Prejudice  94,  149. 

Premature  death,  340-341;  individual- 
isation  257. 

Pride  of  family  314;  of  race  313. 

Probation,  seven  years  of  379. 

Products  of  emotion  131. 

Professional  men  216,  315. 

Proportion  of  successes  199. 

Psychic  after  death  4;  untrained,  un- 
reliability of  156. 

Psychic  faculties  95,  117,  133;  how  to 
obtain  134. 

Psychic  Powers  117-126. 

Psychometrisaticn  of  ideas  136-137; 
of  thought-forms   107. 

Psychometry   156. 

"Pudding  bags"  222. 

Pupils,  Masters  and  40,  362. 

Purposes  of  the  Theosophical  So- 
ciety 362. 


Q. 


Qualifications  of  a  helper  62,  360-361. 
Qualities     of     man     368-369;      three 
necessary  370. 


R. 


Race,  the  Irish  264-269;  the  Jewish 
270-273;  the  Spanish  269-270. 

Ra;es,  Stray  Notes  On  264-275. 

Racial  karma  269;  pride  313. 

Readjustment   322,   325. 

"Ready-money"  karma  329. 

Rearrangement  of  astral  matter  31, 
34,  35,  70. 

Reason,  always  follow  106;  for  high 
thought  114. 

Reasons  for  friendship  37. 


Rebirth  of  Colonel  Olcott  389;  three 
factors  in  289,  321. 

Recapitulation  on  fourth  globe  222, 
242. 

Recognition  of  Theosophy  368. 

Records,  the  reading  of  110,  145;  un- 
rolling of  the  151;  what  they  are 
147. 

Regents  of  the  earth  292. 

Reincarnation,  not  in  an  animal  20,  22. 

Relation  (The)  of  the  Dead  to 
Earth  5-16. 

Religions,  Theosophy  helps  all  358. 

Religious  instruction,  department  of 
359,  361. 

Remember,  how  to  71-78. 

Remembering  Astral  Experience 
71-79. 

Reminiscences  373-383. 

Repetitions,  result  of  119. 

Resemblance,  what  determines  303. 

Reservoir  of  Nirmanakaya  52. 

Result  of  good  action  336. 

Return    (The)    To  Birth  290-305. 

Revival  of  memory  387. 

Revolution,  the  French  360. 

Reward,  each  has  his  501. 

Rising  higher  33-34. 

Rmoahal,  the  265. 

Rose  boat-load  258. 

Rosenkreutz,  Christian  359. 

Round,  the  inner  208,  232,  270. 


S. 


Saint  and   scientist  370-371. 
Sanat  Kumara  365. 
Saturn  191. 
Savage  beliefs  28. 
Savages,  kindly  261. 
Saved   in  an   accident  338. 
Sceptic,  how  to  treat  a  374. 


INDEX 


4u! 


Scientist  and  saint  370-371. 

Scriptures,  scenes  from  19.  . 

Second  round,  man  in  the  234;   sight 
160;  sight,  story  of  161. 

Secret   Doctrine,    The,   191,   211,   215, 
224,  239,  242,  246,  259,  262,  309. 

Secret  society  on  Mars  282. 

Sectarian  books  136. 

See  good  in  everything  37  2. 

Seed  upon  other  planets  207,  233. 

Selfishness,  karma  of  13. 

Selflessness  brings  freedom  34S. 

Self,     identification     of     higher     and 
lower  45. 

Senses  of  the  astral  body  6,  32,  142. 

Separation  of  the  sexes,  237. 

Servers,  the  band  of  41. 

Service,  karma  of  344. 

Seven   Paths,  the   193:   types  of  ani- 
mals 256. 

Seven   (The)  Types  262-264. 

Sex  in  incarnation  314. 

Sexes,  separation  of  the  237. 

Shade  or  shell  294. 

Shell,  mental  50-51. 

Sight,  our  partial  78. 

Simultaneous  consciousness  32. 

"Sin  of  the  mindless"  244. 

Sixth  root-race,  Manu  of  385. 

Size  of  aura  170. 

Sky-walkers   124. 

Slate   writing  374-375. 

Slaughterman's  sufferings  27. 

Sleep,  karma  during  47;  unknown  in 
astral  world  70. 

Sleeping  and  waking  life,  unity  of  37. 

Slum  work,  astral  25. 

Small    injuries    326;    kindnesses    326; 

opportunities  bring  greater  365. 
Solar  Logos,  the  291. 
Solar    system,    building    of    the    175; 
nebular  stage  of  the  182. 


Soldier  and  wagon,  story  of  the  72. 

Souls,  lost  200. 

Sources  of  possible  error  154. 

Spanish  race,  the  269. 

Speech,  astral  66. 

Spell  of  the  Milesians  268. 

Sphere,  the  eighth  184. 

Spheres  of  karma  333. 

Spirit  (The)  of  a  Tree  171-172. 

Spirit,  the  triple  2^9-250. 

Sporting  dog,  the  350. 

Sportsman,  the  27. 

Staff  of  the  Logos  194. 

Stagnation,  mental  94. 

States,  Localisation  of  31-36. 

Still-born  child  302. 

Story    of    second-sight    161;     soldier 

and  wagon  72. 
Story    of     the    agitated     helper     61; 
dream    house,    157;    explosion    72; 
faithful  captain  384-385;  frustrated 
elopement  73;   innocent  forger  125. 

Stray  Notes  on  Races  264-275. 

Striations  in  the  mental  body  91. 

Students,  captious  318. 

Subba  Rao,  Mr.  T.  304. 

Sub-lunar  world  36. 

Sub-planes,  consciousness  on  33-34. 

Sub-races,   Aryan   313. 

Sublime  dissatisfaction  324. 

Successes,    proportion    of    199;    lun-r 
214. 

Successive  Life-Waves  190-211. 

Sudden  death  11. 

Suffering  unnecessary  323. 

Suicide,  consequences  of  9-10. 

Summerland,  the  19. 

Suspension,  aeonian  198. 

Swedenborg  155. 

Symbolism  of  ego  72,  108. 

System.  The  Building  of  the  175- 
184. 


408 


THE  INNER  LIFE 


T. 


Table  of  evolution  192. 

Tanmatra  and  tattwa  176. 

Teacher,  the  coming  264,  361. 

Temperament,  differences  of  154. 

Tennyson,  Lord  119. 

Terminology,  Theosophical  383. 

Terrestrial  imitations  248. 

Testimonial  to  Colonel  Olcott  385. 

Theories  of  Darwin  234. 

Theosophical  Society,  careless  mem- 
bers of  363;  folly  of  abandoning 
363-364;  purposes  of  361-362. 

Theosophical  terminology  383. 

Theosophist  (The)  After  Death 
3-5. 

Theosophy,  A  Course  of  Study 
391-394. 

Theosophy  after  death  59,  69;  books 
on  390-391;  helps  all  religions  358; 
instant  recognition  of  368;  no  dog- 
mas in  158;  types  not  attracted  to 
366. 

Theosophy  and  Word-Leaders  366- 
373. 

Third  round,  man  in  the  236-237. 

Thought,  action  on  physical  matter 
103-104;  control  of  103;  creation 
by  162;  direct  action  of  97-98;  help 
in  108;  mystical  95;  of  a  mother 
303;  of  an  animal  205. 

Thought-Forms  98. 

Thought  and  Elemental  Essence 
112-114. 

Thought-Centres,  107-112. 

Thought-Forms,  collective  110;  of  bib- 
lical scenes  112;  of  historical 
rcenes,  111;  permanent  110-111; 
psychometrisation  of  107. 

Three  factors  in  rebirth  289,  321; 
kinds     of     karma     338;     necessary 


qualities  370. 
Three  Laws  of  Human  Life  289-290. 
Training  from  hindrances  342. 
Transaction  of  London  Lodge  211. 
Tree,  The  Spirit  of  a  171-172. 
Tribal  god,  a  271-272. 
Triple  ego,  the  141;  monad,  the  141; 

spirit,  the  249-250. 
True  name,  the  141. 
Tsong-kha-pa  359-360. 
Tuatha-de-danaan   264-265. 
Turanian  democracy  274-275. 
Types,  The  Seven  262-264. 
Types    not    attracted    by    Theosophy 

362;  seven,  of  animals  255. 


U. 


Unconsciousness   on   astral   plane   11, 

62. 
Unemployable,  the  316. 
Unreliability  of  untrained  psychic  156. 
Unification  of  higher  and  lower  self 

45. 
Unit,  the  mental  88,  294. 
Unity  of  sleeping  and  waking  life  37. 
Unselfishness,  power  of  53. 
Upper  middle  class  216,  315. 
Useful  exercise,  a  100. 
Uses  of  clairvoyance  129-130. 
Uranus  190. 


Vampire,  the  29. 

Varieties  of  Karma  344-349. 

Veils,  bodies  are  37. 

Venus  188;  satellite  of  188. 

Verification  of  dates  224-225. 

Visions,  causal  133. 

Visions  of  A.  C.  Emmerich  110,  112. 

Visualisation  95. 


INDEX 


409 


Vitality  122. 
Vivisector,  the  27. 
Vulcan  186,  187. 


W. 


Warts,  mental  94. 

"Watermen,  terrible  and  bad"  239. 

Wickedness  of  gossip  101. 

Windows,  mental  48. 

What  a  dead  man  knows  3,  5,  6. 

What  happens  at  death  23-24. 

What  Is  The  Theosophical  Society? 
357-365. 

Wheat,  origin  of  247. 

Work,  astral  16,  64;  for  everyone  66. 

Work  of  Colonel  Olcott  387;  the  in- 
visible helpers  18,  25,  35;  the  Lords 


of  the  Flame  245,  247;  the  Masters 
364. 

Workers,  groups  of  254. 

Working  classes  218-219. 

World-Leaders,  Theosophy  And 
366-373. 

World,  the  archetypal  226;  occult  di- 
vision of  358;  the  grey  24,  25;  the 
intelligible  227;  the  sub-lunar  36. 

Worldly  man  after  death  5,  17. 

Worlds,  difference  between  astral  and 
physical  18. 

Worry  102. 


Z. 


Zones  35. 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

An  Outline  of  Theosophy 

The  Astral  Plane 

The  Devachanic  Plane 

The  Other  Side  of  Death 

Some  Glimpses  of  Occultism 

Dreams 

Invisible  Helpers 

Clairvoyance 

The  Christian  Creed,  (with  coloured  plates) 

Man,  Visible  and  Invisible   (with  coloured  plates) 

A  Textbook  of  Theosophy 

The  Inner  Life 

The  Hidden  Side  of  Things 

Starlight 

The  Perfume  of  Egypt 

PAMPHLETS 

To  Those  Who  Mourn 
The  Home  of  the  New  Subrace 
The  Christ:   The  World  Saviour 
Why  a  Great  World  Teacher? 
The  Gospel  of  the  New  Era 
An  Occult  View  of  the  War 

IX    ASSOCIATION   WITH   ANNIE   BESANT 

Thought-Forms   (with  colored  plates) 

Occult  Chemistry 

Man,  Whence,  How  and  Whither 

FORTHCOMING    WORKS    ON 

The  Old  Catholic  Movement 
Co-Masonry 


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